Lawn & Garden Show spotlights trends

While winter weather has come to the Ozarks – albeit later than usual and perhaps more mildly than expected – many people already are thinking of springtime and the warmer weather that will follow. The 2006 Lawn & Garden Show, held Feb. 17–19 at Ozark Empire Fairgrounds, offered homeowners the chance to see what more than 100 exhibitors are offering for their home-and-garden needs.

During the event, participating businesses showcased their products and services related to outdoor amenities and home improvement.

For the birds

For those whose enjoyment of the outdoors is enhanced by being able to watch feathered friends, Wild Birds Unlimited offers feeders, houses, seed, field guides and decorative items.

Owners Bill and Joyce Kastler operate two Wild Birds Unlimited stores in Springfield.

The stores offer houses and feeders made from recycled materials, and design features that keep squirrels and raccoons away.

Birdhouses made from natural gourds are a big seller locally, Bill Kastler said.

“They’re grown and made on a small farm in Pennsylvania. We brought them in last fall and keep re-ordering. People seem to enjoy the natural look. They’re colored differently, and need to be sprayed once a year with polyurethane,” he added. “They still have seeds inside, but have holes drilled underneath for drainage. They look good in the yard and have been appealing to people.”

Wild Birds Unlimited also stocks a variety of seed types, including black-oil sunflower seeds that work well for different birds, and safflower, which has hard shells and can deter squirrels and starlings.

However, the Kastlers note that when people choose to feed birds, they should try to do so at the same time every day.

Concrete concepts

Ron Johnson, owner of RockScape Creations in Springfield, specializes in concrete products for the home and garden. RockScape focuses on improving the ambience of the outdoors.

“One of the products that we offer is a rock cover that goes over existing ugly eyesores in the lawn, everything from well casing covers to irrigation boxes, or maybe a stump,” Johnson said.

Existing hot tubs can be covered with a grotto, Johnson said, so that people feel they’re sitting inside a hot tub inside a cave.

Creating a backyard oasis is another specialty of Johnson’s company, which can build anything from waterfalls to water features such as what he calls “an enjoyment and social relaxation pool.”

“An amenity to the yard, these are something that people can sit on their patio and look at like a fountain except that they can get into it,” he said.

Also, RockScape can remodel existing swimming pools and build waterfalls that flow directly into them.

In addition to such large luxury items, RockScape offers practical products as well. “We can create retaining walls that look like stacked limestone, instead of using a crane to bring in and stack rocks,” Johnson said. “We can create that look from a fully formed concrete retaining wall, yet it looks like stacked rock.”

On the remodeling and repair side, RockScape does microcoatings, which are typically called overlayments, on patio areas.

“A homeowner’s overlayment might be stained or chipped and ugly, and we can come in and put a microcoating over the top and turn it into a decorative patio. It’s similar to patterned concrete,” Johnson said.

Through its sister company, American Power Spraying, RockScape is able to offer service and maintenance to clients.

Raising the roof

Beachly Steel Structures, an 11-year-old company based in Halltown, manufactures and installs steel products such as roofs, patio covers, garages and shops.

“We manufacture all the components for a building and go put them up, ” said Gene Beachly, owner.

The company services a 100-mile radius around Springfield and can work with a variety of structural dimensions for garages and other buildings.

“People all over the area buy them, but often are retired and have a piece of land in the lake area, to possibly put a trailer in and want a garage to put a travel trailer and pontoon boat in,” he said.

The use of steel roofing for homes has increased in the last decade, Beachly said, attributing the increase to affordability.

The cost of steel, he said, is about $2 a square foot installed, so a roof on a 1,500-square-foot home would be about $3,000.