Got next year’s summer garden trip planned yet? For the last few years, I’ve made an annual pilgrimage each spring to the Chelsea Flower and Garden Show in London, England. It could be described as a world championship of gardening where the world’s premier designers compete to produce impossible designs and the latest plants are introduced like debutantes.
Next spring 2012, however, will be different. I’m planning to visit another garden show that vastly exceeds Chelsea in scope and size, a show that could be described as the gardening Olympics. It’s a much rarer event, occurring not once every four years, but only once each decade, the first one held back in 1960. The event is Floriade, promoted as a World Horticultural Exposition, a global spectacle taking place in the southeast Netherlands, close to the border with Germany in the city of Venlo.
The word Floriade comes from the Latin term floriat — to design with flowers, and is pronounced ‘florry yada.’ Funny, I hear ‘flowery yard,’ which is equally appropriate as it is indeed a big yard; a 66-hectare park, in fact, encompassing five areas separated by woodland. Each area will be unique, filled with programs and activities where visitors, as the organizers say, will see, feel, and experience nature in a totally different way each time. The five themes are Relax and Heal, Green Engine, Education and Innovation, Environment, and a World Show Stage. The Relax and Heal section area is to feature a garden designed in harmony with natural elements to balance the energy of visitors and simply make them feel good. Revitalizing — just the kind of thing that’s needed around midday when visiting any garden show.
There’ll be tranquil Japanese gardens there, too, and a restaurant featuring tempting foods of the orient. A section called a “stadspark” will be filled with vibrant plants and flowers as only the Dutch can grow them. An exposition is more than a show; it’s a place for learning and experiencing. The Green Engine section will focus on nature and industry, showing how horticulture is a huge economic driving force. It will have Villa Flora, an innovative, sustainable green office building containing an incredible indoor flower show. And of course, a Flower Bulb Pavilion to tell the story of Dutch bulbs with music, films, and fragrance.
In the Environment area, visitors can enter the Horticultural Pavilion to see displays of everything Dutch horticulture gives to the world. There’ll also be an Avenue of Garden Cultures with international gardens designed to provide wonder and inspiration, and a pavilion devoted to Dutch agriculture and horticulture. It is to feature a sushi style conveyor belt filled with produce for sampling. And then there’s the World Show Stage, the part of the park with a promenade of food, an open air theatre on a hillside, an eye-popping water garden, a pavilion featuring traditional buildings of Indonesia and, of course, more gardens, including an immaculate rose garden.
What Floriade really means is a massive, six month long, horticultural extravaganza running from April to October. Imagine, if you’re old enough to remember, an Expo ’67 for gardeners. That is Floriade. That’s about as much as I know about it, enough to make me want to spend the summer in The Netherlands, except I’d have to abandon my garden. Instead, it will be just a day there, but I’ll be spending a few days seeing more of the country including the famous Aalsmeer Flower Market before finishing off the trip back in England at the good old Chelsea Flower Show — couldn’t possibly miss it.
If you’d more details of this trip or would like to join my group for this tour, contact me below. David Hobson gardens in Waterloo and is happy to answer garden questions, preferably by email: garden@gto.net. Reach him by mail c/o Etcetera, The Record, 160 King St. E. Kitchener, Ont. N2G 4E5
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