GFM Mixes with Fairies and Goblins at the 49th Annual Colorado Garden & Home Show

4 a.m. is awfully early in the morning to be getting up for an event, especially when the local coffee shop isn’t even open. Then try walking into the Colorado Garden & Home Show’s Enchanted Garden and running into fairies, goblins and trolls when the lights aren’t all the way up…oh my! These life-like creatures, in addition to a 10-foot-tall moving tree, bursting bridge and rolling sod were created by LaFondFX Special Effects. Lou LaFond and Town & Country Landscaping created a spectacular visual display for the media and lots of fun for our team to pitch. Our early mornings meeting up with news crews were only the icing on the cake.


Alexandre and I walked the show floor the day before opening to check out more than 16 inspiring landscaped gardens with rich colors, fragrances and textures. The gardens contain more than 15,000 blooming flowers comprised of 75 varieties of annuals, perennials and bulbs, and hundreds of flowering trees and shrubs. More than 100 tons of boulders and rocks, 2,000 truckloads of fresh recycled mulch, waterfalls, ponds and streams, paths and elevated walkways and bridges all add to the gardens’ living nature. The gardens that impressed me the most were the student gardens and Cowpolk’s Hangout themed garden. It is nice to see a bit of Texas in Colorado now and then. All the while I kept thinking, please, please come over and dig up my pathetic backyard. If they can move in and create these gardens in less than 72 hours, just think of what my yard could look like in one weekend!

On a serious note, the ladies from the Flower Competition mean business. We hung out and watched the Colorado Federation of Garden Club members create their designs around the theme of “It’s About Time” with creative displays, floral arrangements with titles such as “Light Years Away,” “Time Marches On,” “Time in a Bottle,” “The Minute Waltz,” and “Frozen in Time.” The competition is so fierce that Avalonne Kosanke (that's her in the picture on the right) wouldn’t even stop more than 60 seconds to tell us about her design. Eye on the prize, baby. We learned it is all about the ribbon and gloating rights.

The show transforms 400,000 square feet of the Convention Center into a virtual marketplace of ideas. It’s a one-stop shopping and learning event on all things related to plants, gardens, gracious outdoor living, and the hottest new gardening and home improvement products and services. More than 600 companies from 25 states and Canada will introduce new technologies in energy-efficient heating and cooling products, window treatments, siding, flooring, lighting, indoor and outdoor fireplaces, patio furniture, gutters, sound systems, storage systems, greenhouses, decks, spas and more.

And if I ever won the Lotto? I’d have my kitchen remodeled by Homestead Cabinet & Furniture. The company specializes in creating custom cabinetry out of lumber recovered from old barns, buildings, & bridges. This green product is unique, creative and second to none in originality--although the armoire on display came with a hefty price tag of $20,000.Yes, 20 Gs.

~Amy M.

2nd Annual Ground Hog Day Bash

Our team celebrated our 2nd Annual Ground Hog Day Bash at Devil’s Thumb Ranch in Tabernash, Colorado. If you have the opportunity to spend a weekend there, you should definitely take advantage of it.(http://www.devilsthumbranch.com/). They are located in the Colorado Rocky Mountains – just ten minutes from Winter Park. If you love the outdoors, know that the Ranch encompasses 5000 acres at the foot of the Continental Divide. Without coming off sounding like an ad for the Ranch, it has a world-renowned cross-country ski center, 5,000 acres of meadow, forest, fishing streams and ponds and has a barn full of not-so-wild horses, mules and cattle for the kids. The new lodge had just opened a few weeks before our arrival. Although there were some new construction kinks that were yet to be ironed out, it was beautiful. There is a three-story, six-sided fireplace in the new restaurant that was created entirely from stones found at a nearby rockslide. Much of the interior trim finish wood is reclaimed beetle kill pine. The kids loved the game room and miniature bowling alley.

The adults liked the hot tub and the food. You can tell that the Men of GFM loved their new hoodies!

Thanks to everyone who spent the weekend celebrating our 6th year in business!