Hamburg, N.Y. (WBEN) - The Plantasia Garden and Landscape Show returns to the Hamburg Fairgrounds Event Center just ahead of spring arriving this upcoming Tuesday. The 22nd annual show opens on Thursday and runs through Sunday.
"Cultivation of Color" is this year’s show theme, and will be the inspiration for garden designs on display at the Event Center. Plantasia features 12 different theme gardens created by local nursery and landscape professionals.
Chris Zeisz, Show Chairman, says the theme and gardens are intended to inspire visitors to design and create very personal gardens that reflect their uses and needs.
"Ideally, when people walk in, they're just gonna see a massive amount of different colored plants, flowers and different displays," said Zeisz in an interview with WBEN.
For those who have never been to Plantasia in the past, there will be fully landscaped display areas for people to wander through and see all the blooming plants and flowers and trees.
"The different creative ideas these guys and girls came up with for their landscapings. We have the Western New York Railroad Society here, and they have a train display in a garden, that thing's really cool. And then all kinds of vendors selling garden wares, tools, plants, a lot of different nurseries and garden centers selling house plants here," Zeisz said.
In addition to serving as Show Chairman of Plantasia, Zeisz serves as manager of Russell's Tree and Shrub Farm in East Amherst. With the nice weather finally starting to make its presence known in Western New York, he says the activity on the phones and in-house with people ready to get their gardening season going has been off the hook.
"We're just starting to get things out, and we're just starting to dig our trees out of the fields and things like that. We are definitely a few weeks early this year with these nice days, and we've had some really nice days already," Zeisz said. "We're gonna take them, they're bonuses, but again, next Monday and Tuesday it's gonna feel like winter again. We'll get there, but it's a typical spring, maybe we've had a few nicer days than normal."
So what tip does Zeisz have to offer folks who have an itch to get their gardening activities started early, or anyone looking to get into the gardening spirit this year?
"Those really nice days and people will go to like a Big Box store or something, they'll see a perennial that's in full bloom. That's not normal, you're not going to see that in a local garden center. So you don't want to buy them and plant it, because the first cold spell we get, the plant's dead," he recommended. "Basically, I would encourage people to go to their local garden centers, they have qualified people there that know what they're doing, they know what they're selling. They know the product, and a lot of cases, are the actual growers of those plants."
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In addition to the numerous free daily seminars given by Certified Nursery and Landscape Professionals (CNLP) and the 100-plus vendors in the Garden Marketplace, Plantasia will also feature a children’s garden hosted by Penn Dixie Fossil Park and Nature Reserve.
One of those vendors is Mark Kuzio from Belfast, Maine, who owns his business Ikebana Ware. He has been to nearly every Plantasia event since 2000, and there are a number of factors that keep him coming back.
"The gardens are always excellent, considering it's a relatively small show. What the landscapers do here is really special, because I do a few other flower shows around the Northeast, and it seems like this show is always really something special," said Kuzio in an interview with WBEN.
However, one of the biggest reasons for Kuzio's continued participation is his interactions with the Western New York community.
"When I come to Western New York, the folks are just wonderful. They're nice, and I don't know what it is, but I just have a really nice time," Kuzio said. "Folks are very friendly, they're very appreciative of my work, it's handmade. I think folks particularly appreciate that, and the folks who run the show are very accommodating. They do all that they can to help the exhibitors here have a good show. It's been great."
Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for Senior Citizens and Children 12 and under are free.
Over 13,000 people attended Plantasia Garden and Landscape show in 2023.
For more information about “Plantasia”, contact PLANT WNY at (716)-741-8047 or www.plantasiany.com.
