Photos by JARED SOARES The Roanoke Times

Health Craft's Jeff Hinkleman provides ordering information about cookware Saturday at the home and garden show.

JARED SOARES The Roanoke Times

Visitors line up to enter the Roanoke Civic Center's exhibit hall for the Greater Roanoke Home and Garden Show on Saturday. One vendor said the large turnout "says something about the resiliency of the American economy."

Above: Flooring samples gleam at the Lumber Liquidators booth. Right: A show attendee carries a whimsical metal rooster through the aisles. The three-day exhibition highlighted home and garden trends.

Above: Flooring samples gleam at the Lumber Liquidators booth. Right: A show attendee carries a whimsical metal rooster through the aisles. The three-day exhibition highlighted home and garden trends.

Paul James of HGTV's "Gardening by the Yard" was signing autographs Saturday at the Roanoke Civic Center.

It may have been dinosaurs drawing kids to the Roanoke Civic Center this weekend, but it was bathtub renewers, sauna installers, lawn mower companies, bakers and landscapers who attracted their parents and grandparents.

The Greater Roanoke Home and Garden Show, which concludes today from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. in the civic center's special events center, had a steady stream of visitors through the lobby, up the stairs and out the doors waiting to pay the $7 entry fee.

Next door, mechanized dinosaurs were walking around the coliseum, a coincidence that helped create another of the civic center's well-documented parking overflows.

At 2:30 p.m. Saturday, a half hour before one of the dinosaur shows, only handicapped parking was available on the site and visitors were forced to take shuttle buses from downtown parking garages or park elsewhere off site.

By all accounts, however, that had little effect on the home and garden show, where vendors repeatedly said they were seeing some of the largest crowds they've ever experienced.

"It says a lot about how people are looking at the coming year," Stan Root said while working at the booth for Outdoor Power Equipment.

Root, a representative for Gravely, one of the lawn mower brands sold by Outdoor Power Equipment, said he has worked similar shows all over the country and not seen anything like Saturday's turnout.

"People want something better," he said. "I think this says something about the resiliency of the American economy."

"I think we're going to do good in spite of Washington," he said with a laugh.

Indeed, people were crowded around booths selling everything from waterless cookware to artificial stone patios to hot tubs.

There were lines waiting to see a demonstration of 3-D television, to get autographs from TV gardener Paul James, and to see "Hell's Kitchen" runner-up chef Lou Petrozza.

Some of the tightest traffic jams, however, were around food and wine vendors.

Robin Raker came in from Kernersville, N.C., to sell her Slices of Heaven baked goods.

"This is the best show I've ever worked," she said. Her mostly Internet-based business, basketsandbeyond.com, has also had a good year economically, she said, belying predictions of economic gloom.

She sold more than 10,000 gift baskets during the holidays, she said. "It's really exciting."

That sense of optimism seemed tangible at many booths, where shoppers could buy a single plant or go all out with a home remodeling project.

Roanoke residents Frank and Meg Carter talked over ideas with Jeremy Smith and Jason Evans of F&S Building Innovations Inc.

"We have a little cottage at the [Smith Mountain] lake," Meg Carter said, adding that they'd like to fix it up.

"This is our first foray into second-home ownership and we're trying to do it as budget-consciously as possible."

She said she's been told that "there are a lot of skilled people looking for work."

"We kept hearing the same thing, that they're hungry," Frank Carter said.

But Meg Carter chuckled as she said, "I'm not sure all their prices reflect that."

Evans said the show helped his company line up numerous appointments to make quotes for home renovation projects.

Such shows usually come later in the spring, he said, but this year's early displays obviously attracted a lot of interest.

The timing was no accident, said Lisa Miller, a spokeswoman for Show Technology Productions of San Antonio, Texas, which staged the event.

"People like landscapers want to get working by February and March," she said. "Now there's plenty of time to go out and do quotes."

Besides, show visitors have the holidays behind them and -- especially after the recent arctic blast of snow -- many have a hankering to think about spring and gardens.

This was the first time the 30-year-old, family-owned Show Technology company has come to Roanoke, said its director of development, Tommy Mantini.

"We're really happy," he said. Even Friday's opening, typically a dead day for dealers, was packed, he said.