A Garden Expo sneak peek...

It might be cold outside but this weekend spring will be in the air inside the Exhibition Hall at the Alliant Center in Madison as WPT presents its 14th-annual Garden Expo. Folks looking for a touch of the warmer, greener days ahead can venture into the show from 4-9 p.m. Friday, 8-6 p.m. Saturday and 10-4 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are only $7 at the door, but if you act fast, they can still be bought for $6 at these participating vendors.

The 100,000 square-foot Exhibition Hall will be filled with the colorful displays of more than 200 exhibitors offering innovative products, garden decorations, seeds, power equipment and more. Central to the Garden Expo is a stunning 10,000 square-foot garden display that shows off the landscaping skills and products of dozens of Wisconsin Landscaping Contractors Association (WLCA) members. Stages in the hall will feature dozens of free seminars where professionals will teach the newest techniques to gardeners of all skill levels. In the rooms surrounding the hall, there will be dozens of hands-on workshops, where for a nominal registration charge, participants can work on a new project and take it home with them.

To see how much work goes into creating a virtual garden from a giant concrete floor, and to see what the Garden Expo is like in its pre-show mode, Be more Tuned In snuck behind-the-scenes Thursday morning to see the set-up in action. Take a look at what we found by clicking the link below...

(Click on the photos for a larger view.)

These corridors -- watched over by a fitting spring-like decorated cow -- are empty now, but by Friday night will be filled with eager gardeners.






Plenty of bright green decorated signs are already set-up in the lobby to greet visitors as they enter the hall.






WPT employees carefully craft what will eventually be a fully functional sales and information kiosk at the front of the hall. This WPT booth is the place to find the new Wisconsin Gardener t-shirts, hats and cookbooks. It is also the spot to purchase Garden Expo raffle tickets to win one of dozens of great prizes from Expo donors.



A WPT staffer hoists the station's logo and attaches it to the custom-made booth rigging. The booth is designed and constructed by the staff of WPT's scenic design department -- the same folks who create the sets you see on your favorite WPT television shows.






This row of some of the hundreds of exhibitor booths is still waiting for the best garden-related merchandise and displays to be loaded in by vendors from across the United States.




Elsewhere in the Exhibition Hall, other vendors have already made quick work of crafting new structures on the floor to display their goods.





The distinct smell of diesel exhaust fills the hall, as skid-steer loaders, fork lifts and other trucks do the heavy lifting for dozens of WLCA member landscapers who are busily preparing the central garden display.


Heavy machinery carries in all of the goods necessary to transform the cold concrete floor into a garden paradise that will showcase a variety of garden, lawn and landscape ideas.





It takes tons and tons of rocks and stones, both natural and formed ...







... and dozens of trees, shrubs and even rolls of sod to make this lush garden possible in the middle of a harsh Wisconsin February.






As more vendors arrive, WPT staff members and volunteers help them check in and find their way to their assigned booths.






And, as the morning leads on, more and more of what would be dozens of deliveries find their way from the blustery loading dock, into their weekend home inside the Exhibition Hall. The only ingredients left to add to the mix are the excited gardeners that will make their way to Madison this weekend. Hopefully you will be one of them. Be more Tuned In will see you there!