It's Flower Power at the Flower Show

Saturday, March 02, 2019

It was full-on Flower Power at the 2019 Philadelphia Flower Show this year. Step into the Entrance Garden this year and the design immediately enfolds you as the Power of Flowers pulls you further and further into its floral heart. Often the Entrance Garden is too butted up again the limitations of the unfortunately low, boxed-in overhang at the convention hall doors, followed by the steep rise to the industrial convention hall ceiling. Not this year.

Drawing inspiration from the Sixties era of colorful pop art and equally colorful artists, such as Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, towering painted-aluminum sculptures of vines adorned with stylized yellow flowers, butterflies and thousands of blooms rise playfully to the 1,200 square foot "meadow" of 18,000 floral stems and wild flowers floating twenty-five feet overhead.

Curved "pods" embrace the sides, inside and out, to showcase the spectacular creations for the 2019 FTD World Cup. Twenty-three designers from around the world were competing in live action right on Flower Show floor at the opening of the show on Saturday. Check out the winning designer at the end. All the flowers used in the competition, by the way, were said to have been grown in the US.

Past the Entrance Garden lie ten acres of imaginative floral displays and delightful gardens, all set to interpret this year's theme. And lift the winter-weary spirits of thousands of visitors, as well. I'll cover some of those highlights in the next blog.

Flower Power indeed.

The Flower Show runs from March 2-10, 2019, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.