Day 113 – Canada Blooms
The Canada Blooms show was happening this couple days. Both my mom and I love flowers so I thought it would be a treat to take her there. Thanks to my hubby, we managed to find some promotional code to get a discount on the tickets. We had an early lunch then I picked her up and made our way down.
This year the show was at the Direct Energy Center at the Exhibition Place. I have been there a couple of the times for other shows and sales but never realized there was underground parking available. If it’s not for those big signs saying same price for underground parking as above ground, I wouldn’t have give that a shot and would just park as I normally do above ground across from the building. Good thing we parked underground as it was quite nippy all of a sudden.
It was CROWDED!!! Oh my goodness. Can’t walk anywhere without bumping into people. It’s CRAZY!! We didn’t want to miss a thing so we walked all the way to the east end of the hall and start going through aisle by aisle. May be that was a slight mistake on my part without looking at the show map first. Turned out we were in the vendor area first. Booth after booth of products for sale. We didn’t hit the flower display area till the of the day when we made it to the west end of the building. I guess next time I should have look at the map first before figuring out which way we should start.
Regardless… the show was slightly disapointed. I was a bit surprised with some of the product that people were trying to sell there. Afterall it’s a flower show. Why were they trying to sell stuff like roofing?? or steel toes shoes?? or formal wear?? just a little bit out of place. I would have love to see more nursery set up booth there and sell baby plants. Sheridan and Kate’s Garden had lovely booths with lots of knicks knacks. Too bad it was really croweded and I couldn’t really had a good look.
Aside from my disappointment, I was glad to found 2 booths that sold PLUMERIA!!!…. Did I mentioned in my previous blog that I LOVE PLUMERIA!!! I was so thrilled to see them it wasn’t even funny. The one booth was selling cutting with roots for $40. I wasn’t planning on investing that much “yet” and that’s why I went for the seed. Then came 2nd booth, they had cuttings available which was $10 for 1 and $25 for 3. How could I resist??? I ended up buying 3. 2 pink and 1 yellow. I am hoping that will slighly sooner than the seedlings. Super excited!!!
As for the flower display area, it was okay. There were several big area that some exhibtors set up as gardens that we could walk through. The one I really enjoyed was the one called “The Cellar”. It used stone as walls and holded together by steel reinforcing mesh. There were trellises with grapes hanging around it. And a seating with a wine barrels wall behind. There were another that was showing how to build COB house. It created an shed with seating area and a nice mushroom garden in front. Unfortuantely with the lighting and the crowd, it was so difficult to get any good pictures. Or I was simply not skillful enough.
Here’s Canada Blooms official website. It’s not entirely bad but with the cost of the ticket and the amount of people that was there, I am not quite sure if we want to go back next year. Although two good thing that came out of it was 1, i got my plumeria, and 2, there were lot of experts for me to ask questions about gardening.
If you have never beeen and if you love gardening, you should at least go once.
