Photo credit: European Landscapes and Design
How do you plant a garden inside?
"It takes a lot of planning," said Glen Gutierrez of European Landscapes and Design of Lutherville.
Not to mention 100 tons of stone, 200 to 300 tons of crushed base material and mulch. And more stone to build a 100-foot border wall.
Gutierrez's design won Best in Show at last year's Maryland Home & Garden Show at the state fairgrounds in Timonium. And he will try to out-do himself this year with a display garden twice the size at this year's show, which opens Saturday and runs for two weekends.
Plans call for an amphitheater made of boulders, a terrace made of slaps of rock and a huge, rustic pergola made of heavy timber.
"It will be like a ruins garden," said Guitierrez.
His staff built a model of what they wanted to do this year, and the model will be on display as well.
"I have a lot of good people and when we decided what we wanted to do, I just let them go."
His display garden will cover about 2,000 square feet at the show, about twice the size of the other gardens. It will include 15 Japanese cypress, cherry trees and 1,000 red tulips.
Gutierrez said such a display costs anywhere from $25,000 to $40,000 to stage, depending on different factors. Labor is the big cost: $10,000 for the five days it takes to pull it all together.
"This year, we have a big project in Ruxton where most of the material will go," he said. "That makes it much more do-able."
European Landscape and Design isn't looking to snag 100 new customers with a display like this at the show.
"We're not a volume business. If we get one or two of the kinds of customers who understand what we do, that would be good. And they are out there."