MUM SHOW UNFURLS UNDER THE BIG TOP
But there’s something for all ages including a murder mystery, and a wine/jazz night
Throughout its 97 years, the folks who put together Hamilton’s Mum Show have been saying “Bring the kids.”
This show, one of the best and most engaging in many years, is bringing out the kid in all of us.
First (not to diminish the 95,000bloom flower and garden show inside the Gage Park greenhouse), there is a carousel — a retro merrygo-round — just outside the show entrance. It’s gorgeous, with lovingly painted carousel horses available for rides during the run of the show. A bit of nostalgia, and a photo opportunity that’s not to be missed.
The carousel is the big tip-off to the “Under the Big Top” theme of this year’s Hamilton Fall Garden and Mum Show, which runs Oct. 20 to 29. Upwards of 10,000 pots of dozens of varieties of mums — blessed with big, vibrant blooms thanks to the late-summer/earlyfall weather — are used in creative and imaginative ways to fully realize the circus theme.
It’s a real credit to the city’s parks staff — generations of them — who have kept the Mum Show going. Every October, when I go to get an advance peek, the city gardeners and other staff are eager to chat, brag a little and show off their work. It’s a labour of love for them. Many bring their own families to the show, and sometimes drop by in their “civvies” to see visitors’ reactions.
Managers and designers can sketch out ideas and order pots of flowers, but it’s the greenhouse staff who patiently push thousands of chrysanthemum blooms into figurines made of floral foam or painstakingly construct props from recycled materials. Kudos, ladies and gentlemen.
So what’s at this year’s Mum Show? As in past years, there’s a bit of history, a bit of education and lots of colour.
The history covers the Mum Show itself, with photos from previous years’ extravaganzas and, this year, of Brantford-based Conklin Shows, which provided a truckload of circus and midway props along with that fabulous carousel outside. There are midway games, cars from old rides, circus posters and historic photos, and at least two vintage “freak show” posters that wouldn’t pass the correctness sniff test today.
Education comes in the form of “Your Mums” — a display of between 40 and 50 varieties of chrysanthemum, with blooms ranging in size from marbles to salad plates. Banners will also explain how the Mum Show comes together each October and reveal some of the “backstage” machinations used to get the plants to flower at just the right time. And it comes in the smart use of some 1,500 pots of “companion plants” such as coleus and alternanthera, a bushy, small-
leaved foliage plant. Gardeners can’t help but pick up ideas about what to plant, and with what else, for end-of-season impact.
There’s colour everywhere, from banks of massed chrysanthemums to a red-and-white fabric “tent” above the centre ring, where a mum-bedecked lion and trainer are caught in mid-act. In a chrysanthemum elephant and giraffe (and a circus cage for photo ops with the kids or grandkids), and at least a dozen other displays.
There’s also a café, of course, and a vendors’ market, as well as a children’s area. But the show has expanded its offerings beyond the usual. On Family Weekend, Oct. 21 and 22, admission is $20 for two adults and two children and there are special add-on activities: face painting, balloon animals, clowns, carnival games and so on. On Saturday evening, Haunted Hamilton is hosting a murder mystery event in the old boiler house. Through next week, there’s a “Red Nose Day,” a bingo evening, a Wednesday Wine and Jazz evening, a craft-and-cocktail event, an outdoor movie and barbecue, a “Solutions Saturday” on Oct. 28 with city gardening experts, and on Oct. 29, a “Sunday Tea Social.” (Some events require advance tickets.) On Monday through Thursday evenings next week, you can dine at the show for $20.
There are more reasons than ever to go to the Mum Show — on a weekend, on a lunch break, or after work — and a real effort to connect with new generations of visitors. Complete show details are available at www.hamiltonmumshow.ca and in a special supplement that was published in the Oct. 14 Spectator.
I’ve always been a fan of the Mum Show. It speaks volumes about this city’s rich and deep horticultural heritage. You can draw straight lines from it to the city’s planted traffic islands, the floral displays along York Boulevard and in the City Hall forecourt, and the revitalizations of Gage and Sam Lawrence parks.
So go and enjoy a Hamilton tradition that’s almost a century old. Take an extra $10, buy some candy floss and put your kids, your grandkids and/or yourself on the merry-goround.
It’ll be a trip.