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Beautifying the Ohio Expo Center

Walking around the Ohio Expo Center in early May you’re not going to see very many flowers, but Chris Buxton, Head landscaper at the Ohio Expo Center says beginning May 13 that is going to change.

“Absolutely, I’m thinking May 13 or 14, we’ll get the tillers out, we’ll till some beds and start preparing and start planting actual flowers as far as what we want in that flower bed and how we want to plant them” said Buxton.

So just how many flowers will they be planting?

“I want to say right off-hand our numbers are just about 60,000 flowers.”

What you may not know, the Expo Center grows somewhere between 60 and 70 percent of the flowers you’ll see around the fairgrounds in the Expo Center greenhouses tucked away in the Northeast corner of the fairgrounds.

“We normally get them in packets of 500 and we’ll throw those seeds in a small tray, top dress it with a little dirt and we put them on a heat mat, mist it with some water until germination, which is about 7 to 10 days, give or take, depending on the actual flower we choose,” Buxton said. “Once it actually germinates we’ll move them into a cell pack, or sometimes we’ll move it right into a four inch pot, depending on the flower and the time we have in between when we germinate it and when it actually needs to go in a flower bed, and that’s how that kinda works.”

Chris tells Brownfield they’ll grow eight or nine different varieties, but the most widely used flower around the Ohio Expo Center is the geranium.

Audio: Chris Buxton, Head Landscaper, Ohio Expo Center (7:45 mp3)