By Reid Forgrave
The Cincinnati Enquirer
![[photo]](flowershow.jpg)
McKenzie Chen Halpert, 2, of Anderson Township, takes a deep sniff at the Cincinnati Flower Show at Coney Island Saturday. Sunny weather helped draw an estimated 15,000 people.
Photos by JEFF SWINGER/The Cincinnati Enquirer
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ANDERSON TOWNSHIP - For Erin Fader, the Cincinnati Flower Show was one big classroom.
She and her mother, Toni, both students in floristry design at Cincinnati State, joined an estimated 15,000 other people who flooded the banks of Lake Como at Coney Island on Saturday.
The Faders snapped photographs of their favorite arrangements. They stared in awe at the bridal-themed table setting, named "Say Yes!" - which featured an engagement ring as a napkin holder, and a ring box sitting atop a huge vase filled with stargazer lilies, bells of Ireland, hydrangeas, Queen Anne's lace, pink roses and pussy willows.
"It's springtime, the perfect time for flowers," said Fader, a florist-in-training at Bella Flora in O'Bryonville. "People are coming here to get ideas because this time of year they're all working on their gardens."
Saturday was by far the busiest day for the show.
"We've had the most extraordinary crowds considering the awful weather of the past few days," said Mary Margaret Rochford, show manager and president of the Cincinnati Horticultural Society.
About 6,000 people attended each of the rainy first three days. This is the show's second year at Coney Island after 13 years in Ault Park.
Under Saturday's sun, people checked out vendors from across the nation, who were selling hammocks and garden fountains, jewelry and hand cream, gardening gloves and garden globes, calla lilies and tropical bouquets.
Predictably, cicada netting was a top seller. A popular new feature this year: professional horticulturalists doing free floral arrangements for people who brought in their own vases and pots.
"People brought in great big baskets and got away with just beautiful arrangements," said Patti Murdock of Anderson Township.
But the best way to judge the show's success is how it lives on in people's minds - and their gardens.
"My favorite part of the show is when people walk by and say, 'Oh my God, this gives me so many ideas,' " Rochford said.
E-mail rforgrave@enquirer.com
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