Outside, frigid weather closed some Arvada roads and put Broomfield on accident alert, but at the Colorado Garden and Home Show on Saturday, Vicki Denny happily inhaled the fragrant promise of spring.
“It’s something I look forward to every year, especially this year,” said Denny, studying a packet of black-eyed Susan seeds for the acre she cultivates at her home near Brighton.
“I can come here and smell spring, instead of cold and snow,” she said.
Denny was among the first of 60,000 visitors expected to attend the nine-day Garden and Home Show at the Colorado Convention Center.
Many see the event as a harbinger of spring and hope. From the vantage point of sales representatives at 600 exhibits, hope is less about green sprouts than greenbacks.
“A lot of the landscapers and contractors get most of their leads for the year here,” said Jim Czupor, a partner in the InterPro Group, which organizes the show, now in its 48th year.
The mélange of exhibits included people selling storm doors and home security systems, toothpaste, saltwater taffy, pooper-scoopers and mortgages.
“We’ll sell 200, 300 One-Scoops today,” predicted Tylor Ross, scooping a euphemistic pile of yellow modeling clay – “Play-Doo” – to demonstrate the scooper for an amused audience.
For Daniel Dick and his infant son, Caleb, the opening-day atmosphere combined the huckster timbre of a state fair with the encouraging lure of a do-it-yourself TV show.
Caleb wore a small orange handyman’s apron, souvenir of a home-improvement booth. “He’s a DIY guy in training,” his father joked.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-954-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
