Top horticultural, landscaping and gardening experts came together at the 16 annual Chicago Flower and Garden show to present their work. The show included a marketplace, gardening seminars, hands-on demonstrations and horticulture competitions.

The Chicago Flower and Garden Show returned to Navy Pier on March 6, where it featured its 25-garden exhibition designed by leading gardening and landscaping experts.

The show was sponsored by Belgard Landscapes, a nationwide network of paving stone and garden wall products manufacturers.

“Cultivating Great Performances” was this year’s show theme, which highlighted Chicago for being known as a wonderful theater location. The show featured displays inspired by “Wicked,” “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” and “Miss Saigon.”

The new floor layout for the show was designed by Terry Guen Design Associates Inc., a Chicago-based landscape architecture and urban design firm.

“The vision for this year’s theme was to make it comfortable and enjoyable,” Guen said. “This year doesn’t even compare to last year because the new show floor is inviting and you know what you’re looking at.”

For the shows theme “Cultivating Great Performances” Terry Guen Design Associates Inc.  incorporated theatre with gardening and landscaping.

“I built two stages for the show’s theme with chairs around the stage; and if I had to do it all over again, I would have put the stage right in the middle of the show floor to make it stand out more,” Guen said.

Guen’s company will also  design the show floor for the 2011 Chicago Flower and Garden Show.

Sue Leadley, a gardener, experienced the show’s opening for the first time this year.

“I love the Chicago Flower and Garden Show,” Leadley said.  “I’ve never come on the first day before, and the first day is lovely because everything is fresh.”

The two major themes this year were  vegetable gardening and the use of perennials. These money-saving techniques can be cultivated in one’s own backyard.

Judy Surna, a lifelong gardener, picked up many ideas from the different themes at the show. Surna said she was born a gardener. As a child she would make mud cakes and mud pies in the garden.

“My daughter, granddaughter and I were all talking about how well it’s organized, and we like the fact that the displays are here and the commercial is in one area,” Surna said. “I thought the idea for the theme was very good, and there are a lot of good ideas to be taken home that you can include in your own garden, like for instance, the window boxes.”

Returning to the Chicago Flower and Garden Show was Richard Hawke, a plant evaluation manager who presented a seminar  “Onward and Upward.” Hawke showcased a variety of vines, including the Boston ivy and the Japanese hydrangea vine, and discussed proper ways to grow and care for them.

“I have grown every vine that I have mentioned today, but the majority of my program has been with the clematis vine,” Hawke said. “I have looked at clematis for about 15 years, and have evaluated hundreds of clematis  varieties over the years.”

Hawke’s main research with the plant and evaluation program is with ornamental plants, mainly herbaceous perennials, to determine the best garden plants for the upper Midwest.

“The plant evaluation program is a comparative trial system,” Hawke said. “We take a group, for instance, asters, grow everything that is commercially available with asters and grow them side-by-side in a test garden over the course of a minimum of four years. We find out their ornamental traits and how adaptable they are.”

The purpose of the plant evaluation program is to recommend not only to the gardening public, but also to the green industry the plants best suited for Chicago and the Midwest region.