For two weekends in early March, the inside of the Philadelphia Convention Center was decked with creative and colorful flower exhibitions, prize-winning plants, and vendors selling food and flower bouquets.
From the intricate flower structures of dogs and pollinators to the use of mirrors and scientific tubes, and beakers, the Philadelphia Flower Show showcased works by local floral and design companies. The PHS Hamilton Horticulture Court also featured plants and flowers of all kinds, which were considered for ribbon awards by a panel of judges.
The show’s theme was Gardens of Tomorrow, a vision merging human intelligence and nature to depict the future created through the lenses of florists, gardeners, environmentalists, and designers.
“It was really cool that you could really see the personality of each of the artists shine through in their displays,” senior Natalie D’Onofrio, who attended the flower show on Saturday, March 8, said. “While they all revolved around the futuristic, some of them were more stem-based, some of them were more floral-based, and then other ones had other plants involved.”
Behind the scenes, the flower show and each of its exhibitions require much thought, creativity, design, and effort to put together.
Designer and owner of Jennifer Designs, Jennifer Reed, spent about eight months developing her idea to build an exhibition around important wildlife in our local ecosystems. Reed won Best in Show, Floral Winner for her animal sculptures centered around biodiversity.
“When the theme came up about it being tomorrow’s garden, I instantly thought of biodiversity because obviously that is the future of gardening, we need to pay more attention to our ecosystem,” Reed said. “I knew, at that point, I could work with animals, so I was excited about doing [my] sculptures.”
Reed’s exhibition consisted of the front half of a house before breaking off into an array of different animal statues—like squirrels, bees, and birds—behind the house’s front. This idea was inspired by her daughter, who, at the time, was volunteering at a nature center in Cape May and had competed in a drawing contest themed around pollinators.
“I made it my own with wildlife that we want around in our backyard, but I thought the idea made a whole lot of sense in terms of everyone having a seat at the table, everyone needing room to play their role and bringing everything back to the way it’s supposed to be,” Reed said.
In determining her design elements, Reed and her team took into consideration plant choices, using all natural materials and selecting all pollinator, wildlife-friendly plants and American-grown flowers. She also aimed for her exhibition to educate people about our area’s wildlife.
“It was meant to be this fun way to show everybody that we’re not so different from the animals that we’re trying to eliminate out of our lawns,” Reed said. “I also partnered with the National Wildlife Federation as an educational sponsor, just to educate people about how to certify their own lawns as a habitat.”
As a designer, Reed has been contributing her artistry to the Philadelphia Flower Show for six years now. She looks forward to hopefully returning again next year with the goal of making her exhibitions more sustainable and creative.
“I’m excited for next year to try different things. I’ve been working on trying to get things to last longer every year because it’s so hard to keep things alive for 12 days,” she said. “It’s nice to be able to have an idea and then to have an organization let you to actually implement it. Working with the PHS is a gift that they give me to be able to be the artist that I want to be.”
As for Haven students, this year’s flower show success has many looking forward to what the PHS will put together next.
“I really just love nature,” senior Nikki McDonald, who attended the flower show on Sunday, March 9, said. “I love plants, I love flowers, so regardless of what the theme is like, I would definitely go back again.”
