The New England Spring Flower Show is on right now in an enormous hall near the JFK Library.  It doesn't have much to do with copyright, but it has a lot to do with spring.  They've created warmth and color (deep oranges, bright blues) by forcing flowers to bloom and then bringing crowds by to admire them.  I'm not a gardener, but I'm related to generations of gardeners, and I have respect for the enterprise.

The kind of gardening that takes place at the Spring Flower Show is carefully planned and executed.  It's a celebration of control; the plants are spaced beautifully and placed against each other so as to show up well; silvers and blues, rough and smooth.  It isn't spring -- not yet -- and many of the blooms don't belong together because (the gardeners tell me) they'd never be present at the same time in the real world.  But they're all there in the convention hall, blooming bravely under bright white lights.    

The moss is dying right and left, and many of the flowers are starting to look tired -- I guess it's a strain, being forced to bloom. 

If you think about it, it's what will happen in the minds of the gardeners that's really interesting; they'll bring ideas home and try them in their own back yards.  Notes were being taken; advice was being sought.  There is beauty made possible by the control in the convention hall, and a great deal of work has gone into making those exhibits possible.  But the show gardens, although ordered, can't be owned.  No one seemed too worried when pictures were taken of their model gardens by amateurs.

It's good to get away from ownership once in a while.  We so easily go too far.