Boston Flower Show

Yesterday I went to the Boston Flower Show at the Seaport World Trade Center in downtown Boston with some ladies from the International Women’s Club. I hopped on the express bus into the city at 7:50 am, went to South Station, from there got on the Silver Line and took it to the World Trade Center.

It was a cold, blustery Boston morning. It was snowing a little bit and the traffic was terrible because of the weather, but I made it in plenty of time to meet the ladies by 10 am. The only thing was I was once again not really dressed warmly enough. I keep forgetting how cold it can be walking around in Boston! I shouldn’t have had to walk outside very much, but I got lost when I initially got out at the World Trade Center stop and walked over to the Boston Convention Center by mistake. So by the time I got to the Flower Show I was thoroughly frozen.

Fortunately it was warm and beautiful inside the flower show. I took lots of pictures of course. In my mind I was comparing it to the Hong Kong Flower Show in Victoria Park. If you click on the link you can see my pictures in Flickr from this show. One nice thing about the IWCB – I wasn’t the only one doing comparisons to previous experiences. One of the ladies said she was a bit disappointed but that was because she was comparing it to the Chelsea Flower Show in England, which is probably the premier flower show in the world. It’s a funny thing about having a lot of amazing world experiences. Yes, it does enrich one’s life immeasurably, but we also have to fight against feeling like everything else pales in comparison. I mean right now I can look out the window and it’s a beautiful, sunny( if a bit chilly) very early spring day. Yes, the view doesn’t include a misty mountain or the lights of thousands of high rise buildings, but it’s very pretty in its own way.

I took lots of pictures, of course, and I ran into several venders that were selling things that seemed like they might work for us. One store I especially liked sold something called Rain Chains . Our house doesn’t have gutters. It has a very steeply pitched roof and an area of gravel drainage around the house that soaks up the water as it rolls off. This works great in most areas and because of all the trees it’s really nice not to have gutters to clog up with leaves. The steep pitch also prevents snow from pilling up . The only problem is in one area in the back right by the kitchen door, where the water falls on the deck and freezes in the winter, so Lee is going to build a gutter in that area to move the water away. Once we have a gutter we’ll need a drainage spout and I think we could use a rain chain instead.

I also found a place called The Garden in the Woods that holds classes in Wildflower identification and gardening with native plants. The classes are run by the New England Wildflower Society.  I’m curious to find out what the best plants are to use for landscaping around here. The classes look very interesting so I’m going to sign up for a couple. More education for me!