At Philadelphia Flower Show, botanical diversity will please and amaze

Credit: Pennsylvania Horticultural Society

There’s a little something for everybody at this year’s Flower Show.

From succulents and cactuses to orchids and houseplants, plus the first-ever “butterfly room” with a combination of domestic and exotic butterflies, the largest and oldest indoors flower show in the world is returning to Philadelphia to brighten the tail-end of winter.

“We think this winter has just been really challenging for people, but they’re going to be game and they’re going to come,” said Lisa Stephano, senior marketing director at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.

Despite the — yet again — snowy forecast for Monday, Stephano is confident that it won’t slow down turn-out, and mentioned that if there is heavy snowfall, special offers may be available on theflowershow.com for visitors still willing to make the trek to the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

In fact, there’s enough material at the flower show to sustain not just the expected four to five hour visit, Stephano says, but a whole day’s worth of activity.

This year’s flower show theme is “ARTiculture,” drawing on elements of the fine arts to make the flowers on display even more fantastic.

“There’s such a fabulous synergy between horticultural design and art. It is an art form in many ways,” Stephano said.

For urban dwellers with small apartments, the love of gardening may only be expressed through a few plants on a window sill. No matter, Stephano said.

“Anyone who has space is looking for these wonderful pops of color, or these vignettes on their deck and patio,” she said.

The difference at the flower show, however, is in rooms full of flowers grown large and filling the room, where visitors can get a look at what these plants would look like if they did have a larger space in which to garden.

Additionally, vendors and exhibitors at the show bring in their own collections of flowers. So, for example, there are plenty of unique and exotic orchids in one collection room, Stephano said.

A horticultural booth at the show will have specialists who can offer advice to visitors on how to tend to their plants.

“Just bring a picture of the plant or the problem and they can diagnose it on the spot,” Stephano said.

By the numbers

225,000
visitors to the Flower Show in 2013

250,000
Average number of visitors

170
Number of vendors at 2014 show

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