2010 IGC show offers sneak peek of 2011 garden plants, products

Well, this past week, I had the privilege of joining Tesselaar Plants at the Independent Garden Center Expo 2010, held on Chicago's beautiful Navy Pier.

The show gave us all an exciting sneak peek at all the new plants, products for sale to the nation's 20,000-some independent garden centers for 2011. Here are some highlights – look for more in my next post!

First of all, here's a beautiful display of bromeliads – one of the tropical plants I've pushed in the past (like in this post) to try in the garden (even if you live in colder climates, like I do here in Zone 6a). This selection is from Rainflorest Flora, one of the largest growers and suppliers of bromeliads, tillandsias (air plants) and other exotic plants in North America.

Speaking of tropical, Monrovia featured this eye-popping gold-and-plum display of Tropicanna^® cannas, pairing the yellow-striped leaves of Tropicanna Gold with the deep-purplish-black foliage of Tropicanna Black (now in wider distribution for 2011).

And here's a shot of some of the products being featured in the new Burpee Home Gardens To Go program. I also wrote about this in an earlier post, and with vegetable gardening such a hot trend right now, I'll be sure to look into what's new for 2011.

All the stylish, colorful garden containers at the show, meanwhile, made me realize that garden design isn't just about the plants - it's about the container, too. I'd love to have one of these ceramic, glazed beauties by Alfresco Home, for instance, instead of the black plastic standbys I find shoved behind my husband's car restoration project in the garage:

These colorful, contemporary pots, meanwhile, come from German ceramics manufacturer Scheurich.

Scheurich, one of the more high-end lines of garden containers on the market, is a more European approach to container design, with the focus just as much on the pot as on the plant or flower within (often one flower or bloom, or a simple element repeated several times).

Outside, we also got a chance to see all the lovely landscape installations along the Navy Pier. This one features Festival Burgundy cordyline light purple scabiosa and calibrachoa and coleus in red, orangeish-gold and purple.

Tesselaar colleague Laurie Riedman and I had a lot of fun on the Navy Pier and in the city of Chicago. Here we are in a bicycle rickshaw (a very eco-friendly way to travel) riding back to the hotel. I also tried a Chicago-style hot dog for the first time (after seeing them on the Food and Travel channels) and we took a trip to the world-famous Garrett's gourmet popcorn for a gigundo tub 'o love … Good thing I didn't have time to make it to the American Girl store, or I know I would've blown a ton of money buying a Bitty Baby and matching jammies for my 3-year-old daughter!

Well, that's certainly enough for this post – the next one will feature some more of the videos I took. In the meantime, check out some of the other blogs on the IGC show, at Garden Rant, Garden Girl and the Blogging Nurseryman by Trey Pitsenberger.