The 2024 Philadelphia International Flower Show

This year's theme was United by Flowers, which is as good a theme as any I suppose. I liked this year's show because it was well balanced. In years past the designs were too heavy on bulbs, then they mixed it up a bit, and it was nothing but orchids for one year, then there was another year where it was lots of plants from Australia and tropical parts of the world. This year's show brought everything together really well. 

 We entered and there as that immediate fragrance of hyacinths that reminded us that spring is just around the corner.

 

Lines of cherry trees, hanging balls of what I think are statice in assorted colors, with a garden planted with orange tulips and grasses, with these fancy bouquets of roses, delphiniums, and a dozen other things, and they're all mirrored in the reflection of the black pool of water.

 It's almost like watching fireworks at night. It's just this huge celebration of flowers.

Moving onto another design we have a bamboo structure with lots of plants growing on. While some of these seem to just be cut flowers, lots of the orchids I believe were epiphytes. It's nice seeing a design where some of the elements would also work in nature. 

Also the lighting in this part of the event is awful for taking pictures. Lots of the promotional material and behind the scenes videos show all the ceiling lights turned on. It would be nice to go to a show where they left all the lights on. 

Gradually the show moves from high art, impractical pieces that are over flowing with flowers, and then onto landscapes, then more art set pieces, and gradually into just single plants in pots, then shops selling plants, then shops selling things that can be used on plants, then shops that are just selling items that can be used outside. 

Pictured above I would put in art set pieces. We have hanging baskets with wreaths of flowers hanging from them. Very pretty in a flower show setting but probably not in many homes. 

I like the idea here but I'm not a fan of the color scheme. I think they were going with the USDA Growing Zones. There is a classic car hidden in there.

I regret I didn't get a nice enough shot of the full display this is from. But I loved the use of leaf litter in it. Despite all the plants used in these displays most of the shows just use patches of lawn, but the use of decorative leaves was refreshing to see.

The line was going out the door seemingly just to see this. You'd think France put the Mona Lisa on tour for how long we waited just to get close. When we finally managed to get to her, I have to say it was just okay. The abundance of fabric on the chest and front seems almost like cheating and it was better when we were far away and only able to glimpse that fantastic hat. My photo doesn't do her any justice as she was a bit of a show stopper. But it was nicer when she was 10 feet away.   

This was another great display. Lots of design going on as if inspired by a children's toy or 1980's game show. And to have made it with the price of wood being what it is.

It's like looking through a window into someone's room. 

This display wasn't getting enough attention. Who wouldn't love getting their hair done up in a florist shop? People with allergies probably, but as a concept the two stores seem to marry perfectly together. 

I "liked" this one I think but I'm not really sure what to make of it. I know it's supposed to be the potential of an abandoned lot but it's hard say look how great these broken cement columns look. It's like a landscape you'd see in a video game like Fallout. The only thing missing is an abandoned car covered in rust. 

This is a great example of beautiful flowers but the full exhibit isn't all that practical. 

This looks amazing. Who wouldn't want to have Easter Dinner at that table. If only the table were a little bit wider so you could put the food on it. As pretty as the flowers are, you probably can't see the people sitting across from you very well. Very pretty but not very practical.

This is another one that looks like an abandoned lot. I love that they used Staghorn Sumac as you don't see that a lot. The trouble though is that is a suckering species so this isn't a very practical landscape. Most of what is planted though is native so there's this idea of succession as the landscape ages. 

Echinacea pallida isn't often used in these displays, especially since they flower in the summer time, so someone has a greenhouse of these. 

I laughed when they thought to include decorative trash. 

I thought these tulips looks pretty and made a note to track some down for next year. 

This is a more practical dinning room. The centerpieces are pretty and up high so they don't distract or block the view of guests seated at the table. 

As much as I've complained about the use of bulbs in the past, this is what my front yard is going to look like in a few weeks. I've come to appreciate sweeping drifts of color especially when it's used sparingly. Seeing what 10 or 100 of something looks like side by side is always great to get an idea of what they will grow well with. Stem length and foliage color/texture and flower color are all factors to consider, and sometimes bulb mixes aren't mixed well enough. The line in our front garden was completely lacking the purple tulips that were supposed to be in the mix.    

As an example of timing issues, mixed among the yellow Daffodil/Narcissus here were some sort of crocus which were only just pushing through the soil. So look for those if you see the show on this coming Friday or Saturday I guess. 

Orange. 

I love seeing almost full sized trees in these shows. Normally they're something flowering but this display used a full on Pine Tree. 

This is a nice practical garden. I've seen youtube videos of gardens that look like this in the spring.Good job. 

The Amsonia wouldn't be flowering but it's a design and great to see them used. The Mt. Cuba Center just released the results of a 10 year trial on these so perfect timing as well.

 Summitry, now if only I'd held the camera level. 

Floral displays as Art didn't really catch my eye this year. One group seemed to use the same props from last year so I basically skipped them.

Onto single plants, or pots containing one type of plant. 

These can be just as enjoyable as those huge displays and landscapes overflowing with flowers. Often these are bread by people from seed who have bread them specifically to bring out different colors or textures that might not be available on the market yet. 

Other times it's just a really well grown plant.

In the case of the Orchids, it's often both. 

This unimpressive little plant is a Sundew. The leaves have hairs with little dots of glue on them. When they catch an insect the whole leaf will coil up and bring the dead insect to the middle. I like to think it was the reason I didn't see any flies around.

There was a bonsai tree section with some very impressive entries. One of them was over 100 years old. Sadly I was getting pretty tired by then so I didn't take too many pictures of them.

Even commonplace plants such as these African Violets had a spot to shine at the show. I say commonplace because they're in every garden center at Home Depot and Lowes.

The sign reads "This ATCO Lawn Mower from England is one of the first riding lawn mowers ever produced. It hales from 1910 and still works!" I kind of wish they had demonstrated it cutting but also understand it's a gas powered engine and would slowly fill the convention center with carbon monoxide.

This wasn't so much a landscape as it was a stall selling fine prick work and pavers.

These stalls have everything you could possibly want... or not. There was another stall selling kites, another one selling things made of wood, a leather shop... their connection to the flower show was tenuous at best.

I did find a few shops selling plants, seeds, and things you would actually use in a garden so that's nice. It was a great show and I look forward to going to next years.

Flowers and the Flowershow

It begins!

My hives seems to have survived the winter, and they were bringing in all sorts of pollen. Despite off and on snow storms (with some more on the way even!) crocuses and some willow trees have started to flower. Snowdrops are also in bloom here but not as abundant as the others. I see maple tree buds are starting to swell so it's good to see spring is coming. 

Also: I normally do a yearly post on the Philadelphia International Flower Show. While I did go this year I have to say I've never found flowers to be so sedating. A lot of the displays were over designed, using plants more as a material to display color and texture, than anything practical in a garden. Here was a chance to make the Mona Lisa with flowers and instead they plucked the peddles and leaves off of the plants and glued them to the wall.

Balls?

Knitting needles with doughnuts?

Some of them came off as craft projects there didn't seem practical as works of art nor as flowering displays.

 The most successful designs I felt were ones that were made to be glorified vases, that played with light and color to great effect. 

The theme was "Articulture" which combine the thrill of art with the boredom of wandering an art museum. But it lacked the history and signatures of the great minds that helped create. Art museums tend to be laid out in a specific way, grouping like-pieces together from parts of the world or periods in history. It's interesting to see in the older pieces how subdued and orange-like the reds are because no one knew how to make the ruby red lipstick shades we have today. It was somehow more practical to use real gold instead of yellow at the time too. No one knew how to draw three dimensional spaces yet and portraits were generalized, almost caricature-like. Eventually we see more colors coming into play, and portraits start to look more and more like people. Sadly there wasn't a whole lot of that going on except for one area in the back.

This was my favorite display there. It's a shame the rest of the art show wasn't more like this. It pays tribute to the artiest in different styles but could have done more to incorporate the flower theme a little better.

I actually liked this display for its design but unfortunately I can't help shaking his feeling that I've seen it before at the Philadelphia Flower Show on past years.

There was a painting to go along with this display. Basically the painting was the blueprint for the design here which was mostly brown with a blue pool and half circle in it. It's a good representation and I like that they used ... it looked like almost all native meadow plants in winter. It suggests that the painting could appear in different colors at other times of the year.

I actually hated this design because of how impractical it would be to plant. It's a nice collection of evergreens in a nice display but you might as well have planted a topiary garden because most of these trees want to grow 25' tall.

Show me Dutch Wave, Cottage Style Garden, Naturalistic Style and turn that into a painting so it doesn't just look like another landscape.

It was an okay theme this year, just not fully envisioned to its potential or perhaps taken in more by the idea of modern art. Paintings as a commodity, a speculative bubble waiting to burst just as the Tulip craze did so many years ago.