Durham celebrates spring with home and garden show

Poor college kids be advised: This show was for home owners only. Parental guidance recommended. If you needed pest control, new windows, landscaping with 20-foot palm trees or needed to know how to cook gourmet tuna, this show was for you.

The 10th annual Seacoast Home, Garden and Flower Show was held at the Whittemore Center in Durham, NH, during the weekend of April 1-3, 2005. The show hosted cooking seminars and product demonstrations by local businesses

Two charities, the Cocheco Humane Society and New Hampshire Society for Cruelty to Animals, were given space to sell donated floral bouquets.

Participants could find anything from specialty foods, flowers, photography, home landscaping, small appliances, to the home itself.

The arena floor, concourse and mezzanine levels were filled with about 300 stalls spread over 40,000 square feet and occupied by 180 different businesses.

"It's a show for every member of the family," said Karla McGonigle Ficker, co-owner of Dickson and McGonigle, INC., the company that produced the show. Her partner is Cynthia Dickson O'Connor.

"We draw from local businesses to bring them to the forefront. That's the goal," Ficker said. "Many businesses know their product really well, but don't know how to market, especially the smaller businesses."

On the floor

The arena floor held the "Home" part of the show.

At the Advanced Wildlife Control booth, toy battery-operated skunks squeaked and squirmed on a table and creeping spiders on the wall demonstrated what participants will not find after employing the company.

Norbert LeCompte of Dover and his wife spent three and a half hours browsing specifically for windows for a remodeled kitchen.

"We can compare all of [the products] available all in one place," LeCompte said. "We've been married for 50 years, and we're about to get divorced over a kitchen window," he said as the couple laughed together.

Ficker said she worked with the vendors to create a comfortable atmosphere for the participants where Vendors did not yell out to passers-by. They were calm and courteous.

Bobby Stead of North Hampton stood watching a demonstration of "Kitchen Craft" stainless steel cookware. The vendor, Krista Willet, spoke through a head-set microphone while using two hands to flip food in and out of pots and pans.

"I like her presentation. She's soft spoken," Stead said.

Around the concourse

The Whittemore Center concourse and lobby held the "Garden" part of the show.

One vendor, Piscataqua Landscaping, showcased a Japanese maple tree and threadleaf false cypress, among other plants. The company from Eliot, Maine does everything from design, installation and maintenance. The booth featured a landscaped walk-way booth complete with a rocky pond and mulch.

"My plant addiction brought me out," Jake Ouellette from Madbury, who bought plants from the UNH greenhouse, another component of the show said.

"It was almost too perfect," added Ouellette. "Everything was beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I did not see a single brown leaf." He said he found a 20-foot palm tree, something he has not seen at any other greenhouse around. "I want know how you grow a twenty foot palm tree," he said.

In the mezzanine

The mezzanine was home to the indoor portion of the "Meet the Chefs" cooking series.

Jack Ford hosted the series featuring 11 professional chefs from Seacoast restaurants. Ford is a native New Englander and veteran host of cooking shows.

In the kitchen studio on Friday afternoon, Chef Rick Smith of Acorns Restaurant at the New England Center in Durham prepared sesame seared ahi tuna in front of a live audience. Smith described each step of the preparation and passed out samples of ingredients to the audience. He gave general commentary and answered questions from the audience as well.

Audience member Pat Barrett of Belmont said she liked the entire show as she watched Chef Smith prepare his tuna. She came from the arena floor where she bought a soft-sided hot tub.

"I expected it to be nice, but it's better than I expected," Barrett said.