I was fortunate to attend the Home and Garden show on the morning of the last day of the show which was Sunday March 2, 2008. As I approached the ticket counter I was pleasantly greeted by a wonderfully fragrant aroma of spring flowers, ah such a treat.                                                                           
 Anyone who gets depressed by dreary winter weather, the Home and Garden show is a must see to lift your spirits. It’s been a challenging winter season in Central Ohio…snow that turns into rain then back into snow; everyone has been home bound. The day I attended the show was actually a beautiful day; a spring like day-60 degrees-how fitting. The Home and Garden show is always at the Ohio Expo Center which is also known as the Ohio State Fairgrounds. The show started on February 23 and ended on March 2, 2008; it’s quite a large show which encompasses two buildings.  Everyone’s tour begins in the first building which enabled spectators to ramble thru spectacular storybook gardens including large evergreens, flowering trees, footbridges, babbling brooks and oodles of beautiful flowers. 
This years gardens were designed around storybook themes: Including Aladdin, Noah’s Ark, Brock the Balloonist, The Chronicles of Narnia, Swiss Family Robinson, Jungle Book, Hansel and Gretel, Jack in the Beanstalk, Sleeping Beauty, Alice in Wonderland, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Wizard of Oz, Three Little Pigs and Winnie the Pooh. The Storybook gardens were designed and created by members of the Columbus Landscape Association; 6 months of planning went into these gardens. All the gardens were beautiful and some made me stay a tad longer than others. There was a huge15’ tall giraffe topiary at the Noah’s Ark garden display.

 An outdoor room was incorporated into the Three Little Pigs storybook garden; there was a pizza oven and a concrete counter top, a small sink and a barbecue mounted in the kitchen area of the storybook garden display. The Winnie Pooh storybook garden had a projector aimed into the water area of the Pooh garden. The flowering trees at the Brock the Balloonist storybook garden were really dramatic; the Queen of Hearts ruled in the Alice in Wonderland storybook garden with its breathtaking sea of red tulips. The Wizard of Oz garden evoked my favorite childhood memories.

As I finished the garden tour I browsed thru many outdoor improvements and remodeling displays; I came across these interesting discoveries. A plasma TV made specially to be installed outdoors, a huge hot tub that was 15’ long 8’ wide and 4 ft deep; now that’s a very large hot tub. Beautiful fire pits with seating areas give elegance to outdoor living spaces which are becoming so popular in bringing the indoors to the outside. Being a person who loves being outdoors I spent so much time wandering thru the gardens that I had to rush thru the second building at the show; it contained many new innovations that you could use in all your remodeling projects. A water faucet especially intrigued me with a light at the tip of the faucet. How pretty the water looked as it flowed out of the faucet. Then there was a display of how an ordinary small basement window could be reconstructed into an egress window, great for those that want to add a bedroom in the finished basement. Oh my, what they have done to windows.  Anderson Windows has a new Low-E4 window that cleans itself.  Another window company had a display of fiberglass windows, a great insulator which will not rot like wood windows. There were many displays of kitchen cabinets, ceramic tiles, tankless hot water heaters, gutters and so much more that it’s hard to mention it all.

I also learned that when remodeling you should make sure the remodeling professional is a member of NARI (National Association of the Remodeling Industry). NARI ensures that its members are full-time professionals. To be a member the association puts the professional thru a extensive screening process and there are strict membership requirements including a code of ethics. For help locating a NARI professional in Central Ohio you can visit www.trustnari.org or call 614-895-3080.

There is something for everyone at the show, a special day for seniors and kids; Dr E. Gordon Gee, president of The Ohio State University read from storybooks to the kids on their special day; there were demonstrations from celebrity chefs, gardeners and decorators. There was even a first time homebuyer seminar conducted by Tom Walker of the Ohio Finance Agency. I have just scratched the surface; you need to go see, feel and have fun. If you live in Central Ohio or are from out of town, mark your calendar to see the 2009 Central Ohio Home and Garden Show…you will not be disappointed.

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