I Could NOT Have This Cake and Eat It, Too!

Finally, one of my favorite things at the Chicago Flower and Garden Show was this amazing cake! Yes, it really is a cake! It was made by Creative Cakes Bakery and Cafe from Tinley Park, IL.

I immediately sent pics to my daughter, as she works at an elite cake store here in SE Michigan and told her I had found my next birthday cake.

I mean, a beautiful garden with a conservatory. Check out the houseplants inside the windows. This is a dream cake!

Look at the grass and the ivy climbing the walls.

Check out that fountain!

I love these tropical plants in terracotta pots.

There is even pots of tropical plants flanking the front door. The detail on this cake is unbelievable and a true plant lovers dream cake! I could not cut or eat this cake! Could you?

Miniature Garden Wonderlands

As we keep walking through the Chicago Flower and Garden Show, lets get down to the kid's level and see what they see. Miniature gardens! Kids and adults alike love these diminutive gardens and though its harder for us to bend down and see them, it doesn't stop us.

How about this farm? You Bachelor fans should love this! A barn, chickens and a potager all make this an adorable homestead. The plants include basil, baby's tears, and in the potager, they used succulents such as Echeveria and Crassula to represent the veggies. So cute!

Using cloches to extend the growing season.

A braided azalea tree makes the shade for this adorable garden

 This exotic garden above has a beautiful rock garden with succulents including Crassula, Echeveria, and Kalanchoe. One of the houses sports a green roof. And how imaginative to use Muelenbeckia or wire vine to represent grape vines. The orange Kalanchoe flanking the front door really grabbed my attention.

This green roof is covered with succulents

Wire vine or Muehlenbeckia used to represent grape vines.

This little camp site is cool in the shade of a Norfolk Island Pine and a lemon cypress.

 Even though most fairy gardens are outside, many houseplants can be and are used, especially if the garden is in a shady spot. As we saw above, little trees like Norfolk Island Pine, topiaries, and cypress trees are perfect to represent large shade trees in your mini gardens. Of course they will have to be brought in for the winter though,  unless you live in the south. Many small plants like baby's tears and Selaginella make great ground covers. Fittonia or Hypoestes add a splash of color in your fairy garden. Succulents are used for all kinds of accents, such as veggies, roofs, and in tiny containers as they can live without soil for quite some time.
When you start your fairy or gnome garden or just a mini garden, look in the houseplant section for some inspiration!

 This miniature garden can be kept inside year round as it completely made with houseplants. This little bench is completely surrounded by Tillandsias or air plants.

Window Box Wonderland

Dracaena, Guzmania, Aeonium, Senecio, Kalanchoe, and more are in this window box.

As I continued through the Chicago Flower and Garden Show, I came upon these window boxes full of gorgeous houseplants and more. It turns out that garden clubs in the Chicago area planted these and it is a competition. Each garden club had a 36" window box to use. It would be hard to choose as each one had its own great personality. I love when local garden clubs get involved in flower and garden shows. I understand that this is the first year the garden clubs have been participated. Awesome!

What a great idea to use a spice rack for herbs!

Shamrock, Selaginella, primrose, ivy, and baby's tears are all used in this box

This window box above is all about recycling. They used Kermit to draw attention to the fact that we should not throw our garbage into ponds or lakes. I love how they used cans, jars, and boxes to contain the plants. The plants include baby's tears, ivy, primrose, shamrock, purple passion plant, and an African violet.

Miniature garden window box

The window box above is obviously a miniature fairy garden. The plants include Schefflera, African violet, Fittonia, Kalanchoe, and baby's tears.

Of course, someone had to use the "Fifty Shades" of something theme. It is the hottest trend right now. So, here we have the 50 Shades of Green, with ivy, Caladium, Alocasia, Pothos, baby's tears, white cyclamen, and a shamrock. This is a gorgeous window box and would be an amazing shade window box outside this summer.

I love the hot colors used in this window box. Guzmania, Kalanchoe, croton, Juncus, and Tillansia ionantha are combined very well here.

There is an abundance of plants in this window box. Daffodils, ivy, ferns, and geraniums are all packed into this small area.

How about this amazing window box? The wire vine, ivy, plumosa asparagus fern, Norfolk Island Pine, and Fittonia make this little house and garden adorable. 

Who wouldn't want to get married in this Wayside Chapel? Norfolk Island Pine, Lemon Cypress, Kalanchoe, Hypoestes, Pilea, and an unknown vine make this window box beautiful.

This window box uses some beautiful and unusual houseplants. The two end plants are Calathea rufibarba and the middle plant is a red Aglaonema. The bottom of the Calathea leaves are very soft and fuzzy. It also includes Ranunculus and petunias.

Later this week, I'll show you some more of the flower show including some adorable  miniature gardens. Hopefully, if you live near Chicago, you can make it to this great flower show.

Searching for Houseplants

Cinerarias for sale at the Mariano Market

Yesterday I attended the Garden Writers Association Region III Meeting in Chicago. It was held on Navy Peir and coincided with the Chicago Flower and Garden Show. We were able to attend the show and were allowed in 2 hours before the show opened to the public. We took pictures and shopped without the crowds. It was wonderful!
Of course the gardens were beautiful and at this time of year, the variety of plants they can use are limited in frozen Chicago. For that reason, a lot of tropicals or houseplants, as I call them, were used in the displays. I was in heaven and I'm going to take you on a tour with me to see all the wonderful houseplants used in these containers and garden vignettes. 
My favorite garden used houseplants in abundance. The amount of unusual houseplants used was refreshing. You decide for yourself.

Cordyline with cyclamens

This garden was designed by City Escape, a landscape company in Chicago. The first thing I saw was this amazing espalier of camellias. It made a beautiful backdrop for the cordylines and cyclamens.

Camellia espalier

Camellias, cordylines, and cyclamens

This planter above was created by company called Opiary and I am in love! Why hasn't anyone else thought of adding a trough at the bottom of a container so the bottom looks as good as the top?!  They used bromeliads, Tillandsias, moss, and button fern to create an amazing planter.

Tillandsias blooming in a table leg

This table/planter was also designed by Opiary. Who doesn't want a table that holds houseplants? I sure want one! 

The Opiary planter above has begonias, a staghorn fern, a medinilla, tillandsias, calathea, and an asparagus fern. Isn't it stunning?!

How about these planters with Tillandsias spilling out of the top?

Here is another Opiary planter filled with ferns and pileas and moss.

This planter placed on a pedastal had Medinilla, maidenhair ferns, and rex begonia vine or Cissus discolor.

Hydrangeas, cordyline, pieris, tulips, and arborvitae

I'm sure you can tell that this was my favorite garden. They had the most beautiful planters filled with tons of houseplants. But, there were many other gardens, all using houseplants in some way. Let's keep moving.

Bird's Nest ferns, crotons, and daffodils used in this water garden

The next garden was called Water for All the Senses and was built by Aquascape. They had many different water features, big and small.

Living walls are hot right now and this one, filled with houseplants, is lovely. It has bird's nest ferns, syngoniums, philodendron, hoyas, and moss.

Aglaonemas and daffodils

Above they added some color with the flowering anthuriums and the pink Dracaena marginata.






















This simplistic garden above was serene and would be a wonderful place to sit and just watch the koi fish drift by. The terrarium on the side table was the only adornment other than the beautiful fish in this garden. 

This display was the Natural Gas Safety Garden. The idea behind this garden is to point out the fact that other things are in our soil other than plants. I love how they used these yellow pieces of pipe to add an architectual piece to the garden and softened it with tillandsias. 

Agave, cyclamen, and silver satin pothos

This was the planter on the deck leading up to the front door.

Mariano's orchid display

Mariano's Market had some beautiful orchids and houseplants for sale. 
I'm going to stop here and pick up tomorrow with some more amazing displays. The garden clubs around Chicago planted up some amazing window boxes and you have to see them. I also have made a Pinterest board you can visit here to see more incredible pictures.