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Springing Forward
Residents reap early rewards at Home and Garden Show
By SEAN BARRON
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
Photo
Noah Miller, 4 of Sandy Lake PA, sits atop a riding mower on display from The Home Depot during the Home and Garden Show at the Expo Center in Niles on Sunday afternoon.
Is spring here yet? No, judging by the bare trees, mounds of snow and salt-covered vehicles that remain a fact of life for Mahoning Valley residents. And not for another month, according to the calendar.
Nevertheless, you might have been tricked temporarily into thinking otherwise if you walked past the daffodils and shrubs surrounded by mulch that were a colorful part of the annual three-day Mahoning Valley Home and Garden Show at Eastwood Expo Center in Niles.
Hundreds of people spent part of Sunday getting spring and summer ideas for their homes as well as simply browsing or buying merchandise for the upcoming growing season. A sample of goods and services included lawn-maintenance and landscaping products, swimming pools, hot tubs, weed trimmers, tractors, house siding, gutters, patio and indoor furniture, invisible fences for dogs and pet supplies. Area and regional vendors were available to address problems such as bowed and cracked basement walls, water leaks and faulty gutters.
Some exhibitors also offered demonstrations on cooking, cake baking and steam ironing.
“A lot of people are asking questions regarding home improvements and getting ideas for their patios and landscaping,” said Harry Kale, general manager of North Lima-based Tabor’s Landscaping & Garden Center Inc. and one of the exhibitors.
Signs of April and May — even if simulated and indoors — were evident by the scattered mulch patches that contained hyacinths, miniature daffodils, irises and crocuses in and near the business’s booth. Also on hand and for sale was an indoor or outdoor waterfall requiring assembly that recycles 2,400 gallons of water per hour.
“Some people are happy to get out and see flowers already,” said Christine Tabor, whose son, Erik, owns the 18- year-old garden center.
For more than 10 years, Tabor’s Landscaping has been a regular at the event, she said, adding that other services the business offers are snowplowing and a lawn-fertilization program that uses organic products.
Anyone wanting to enhance their gardens, decks, walkways and other residential areas likely found a conversation with Ed Wojciechowski to be enlightening.
Wojciechowski, owner of Edison Lighting in Boardman, said the 10-year-old business specializes in installing a variety of outdoor landscape lighting and already has many jobs lined up.
“We’re starting to get really busy now,” he said. “As soon as the snow’s off the ground, we go out.”
For those who desired a sunroom instead of simply settling for sunshine this spring and summer, there were plenty of bright ideas in the area of Patio Enclosures Inc. of Macedonia, Ohio.
“This is the time when they’re beginning to make their annual home-improvement plans,” said George Goran, a company salesman.
Most sunroom purchases are in spring and early fall, Goran explained, adding that it typically takes between eight and 10 weeks between a customer’s decision and the finished product.
The business also sells blinds and replaces windows, mainly in the fall, he said.
People who are tired of their cracked and unsightly concrete needed to look no further than Cary Dabney, an event coordinator with Nature Stone, a business with a showroom in Struthers that sells and installs premium flooring.
Nature Stone, based in Bedford, Ohio, offers more than 20 colors, styles and shapes of stone to add to concrete on patios, walkways, porches and in garages and basements. Installers use epoxy, a glue that gives the stone the ability to adhere to concrete; the next day, they apply resin to seal the stone and prevent discoloration, he explained.
The material comes with a 10-year guarantee and is resistant to freeze/thaw cycles and salt, Dabney added.
“It gives it that look like [the concrete] has been carpeted,” he said.