My husband and I had an opportunistic moment (all the planets of our lives were in alignment) to attend the 2019 Philadelphia Flower Show. “Flower Power”, demonstrating the “Power of Flowers” in our lives was the theme for the 190th year of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society Show as well as hosting the FTD World Cup floral design competition. This is the largest flower show in the USA and takes place at the Philadelphia Convention Center. I have attended previous Philadelphia Flower Shows in 2001 and 2006 with my Mom, both of us Master Gardener graduates and horticulture lovers and we totally enjoyed it and our time together. Both trips my Mom and I took a bus with fellow gardeners and the only thing I always hated was leaving when it was less crowded, as most day trippers left, and felt that I did not have enough time.
My husband made my dream come true, we decided to go Thursday (March 7th) to visit all the historical sites (since our boys did on their school trips and we never did) we checked into our hotel (Hampton Inn) by the Convention Center, and then walked to the historic area- it was bitterly cold and so windy but this only made us walk faster. We went to get our tickets for the Independence Hall with a tour time of 3:00 and since we had time, we looked at the exhibits in the Independence Visitor Center and then went to see the Liberty Bell. We searched out a warm spot for lunch and escaped the cold at LaScala’s Restaurant, we got a booth with a street view and laughed while people watching throughout our meal. The first glass of house wine warmed us up nicely, we had Fettuccini Alla Romano (shrimp, lump crab, peas in an alfredo sauce), and Wild Mushroom Pappardelle (mushrooms, prosciutto, peas, caramelized onions in a truffle sauce). We enjoyed the lunch which warmed us up enough to go back out in the cold. In fact it started snowing as I took pictures next to the statue of my favorite founding father and patriot George Washington! We toured the Independence Hall Area, Constitution Hall and Old City Hall, the American Philosophical Society, Signers Garden, and Benjamin Franklin Grave. We walked back to the hotel and relaxed, later getting a take-out selection of Dim Sum.
After having a big breakfast and donning my daisy pants (see Projects Blog for how I made them) we walked to the Convention Center and entered the Flower Show. Most attendees start at the main displays in Hall A, the shows main entrance, it was so packed so we opted to view Hall B first. The very first Landscape presented by Stoney Bank Nurseries called “Unplug and Play” was my absolute favorite display within the entire show. Every element of the display was so beautifully done and can relate to a home, or country garden. The beautiful ornate gate (with its flowers, bird and critters), was so inviting calling someone to enter that I could envision myself touching the beautiful metal opening the latch and going in. All of the trees, shrubs, plants, and flowers worked perfectly in the display. The open grass area was ready for play and placement of a kite, baseball mitt, trucks, and a ball in the water feature made it realistic (in fact reminded me of my yard and could envision laughter and calls from my two boys). Another forest style area with a cut log checkerboard with painted ladybug and bumble bee stones provided a perfect area to sit in the woods for a fun game, definitely adding one to my forest garden. Close by you can see garden fairies, in their perfectly placed homes working their magic on the earth. I totally loved everything about this display except the water feature a clear large cylinder it felt so modern in a warm cozy area, but loved the ball floating in it!
We viewed the Design Gallery next which is another realistic way to garden showing various balconies, small entrance gardens, containers, interior rooms, and back entrances. All had different styles, themes, and materials giving great ideas to everyone to make their homes colorful and beautifully inviting! It was almost time for the first Presentation of the day so we headed to the “Garden Studio” which is one of the presentation areas on the show floor the other area is the “Designer Studio” where presentations on flower arranging takes place. I did enjoy the past years when presentations took place in separate large seated rooms down the hall from the Show Hall Area. It was quiet, speakers at the Garden Studio had to stop every time there was an announcement, and being in the middle of everything it was distracting both with noise and movements. Also I found the presentations of the past more professionally presented. This first presentation, “Power Couples: Perennial Pairing for Jaw-Dropping Gardens and Containers” (Deborah Trickett) had very beautiful slides of perennial pairs along with a handout listing (although not enough for the crowd?) which provided me with a few mixes that really look great together that I do want to try in my home garden, however she added celebrities and political figure pictures to her presentation for demonstrational purposes, she should have kept it to just celebrities because she was obviously making a political statement, no one wants this at a flower show. After the presentation we decided to grab a Philly cheesesteak from the Terminal Market and get some Stella Artois right from the Stella Artois Streamliner, wish there were more seats at the Beer Garden, we found a spot to relax and slowly savor our beer. We finished seeing all the displays in the Home Gardening Hub area, and my favorite there was presented by the Williamson College of the Trades on “Phytoremediation”, plants planted today for tomorrow. Phytoremediation is the ability of plants through their specific metabolic systems to absorb and remove contaminants from the soil. This could be an alternative to manual cleanups, in certain cases it is cost effective, environmentally friendly, reduces spread, or maintains containment. I find this so interesting especially because I grow mushrooms and know they are capable of this and have been used to clean up contaminated areas by phytoremediation. The Gardening Hub area always provides a wealth of information on many aspects of gardening that is beneficial and educational to the home gardener.
We had some time until the next presentation and decided to do a quick spin through all the vendor booths in Hall C of the Exhibition area. This vendor area has dramatically increased since the last time I attended, I specifically just looked quickly only stopping to view actual things I may use in my garden, and really did not waste too much time here.
The only presentation that I was really interested in attending was “The In’s and Out’s of Growing Your Garden from Seed” (Emily Murphy), because I grow almost everything from seed and save seeds each year I thought this would have been educational and may have given me more tips on how to do it better. Unfortunately it was slow and disappointing and did not really provide any value to even the beginner gardener, and my husband said later, I do not know how you could have sat through it. At this point in the day the crowd was thinning out all the school kids had left, every available chair in the concourse area was taken as those who had enough and were just waiting until it was time to board their buses home. We now looked at the main exhibits in Hall A, they were all so true to the theme, and it was so awesome hearing cool music from the sixties as the overhead display of flowers suspended from the ceiling changed in a wave of colors giving the flower lover quite an “imaginable trip”! A “Hippie Homestead” which included a shed, rainbow painted truck, a tent with mood lamp vibe, flower embellished pants hanging on the line (nice), old rusted tractor, and decorated for a hippie wedding reception with wooden cable reels for tables and tractor seats with beautiful flowers and plants throughout made you feel like you were sent back in time as a guest for this wedding. As a musician my husband loved the large Marshall amps, guitars, and a keyboard was cool addition to the wedding scene and throughout the flower show music and artists (such as Jimi Hendrix) were represented in the displays.
The Floral Designs throughout including the international competition were so unique and beautiful, including hardscape items, shapes (lots of triangles my graphic design son would appreciate), suspended flowers or vases, unique use of colors, shapes, textures, and styles. I particularly liked a chartreuse and burgundy arrangement that was a mass of individual groupings each surrounded by leaves or ribbons, giving each area a distinction as if a bunch of nosegays put together. Truly amazing artwork using only natural elements (flowers, seeds, cones, etc) was on display as well as mini arrangements, pressed plants, and photos. We attended one last presentation, “Gardening for Good Health: It Makes “Scents”, presented by a horticultural therapist and a nurse, they explained the benefits of horticultural therapy and aromatherapy respectively, but I do not think they talked with each other before their presentation. Volunteers handed out herbal seed packages with information printed on them and peppermint and lavender oil travel samplers. This was a great way to emphasize the importance of herbs and scents on health and bring it home and put it to use. Bars are set up throughout the show floor, my husband got me a glass of wine to savor as we walked back to see everything one more time, it was absolutely lovely. We ended the day by viewing the plant competition in the Hamilton Horticourt and the G Scale garden train set up by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Garden Railway Society, located in Hall B. Finishing up at about 6:30 I felt we had enough time. I highly recommend visiting the Philadelphia Flower Show it is an absolute fresh breath of spring after a long winter, there is something for everyone to appreciate even if you are not an avid gardener. As one however it gives me so much inspiration to incorporate the ideas I liked into my landscape or inside my home, a new list of plants or flowers I want to obtain and grow, even if I only do a few my world will be much more powerfully beautiful and impact my life!
Dinner that night was at Barbuzzo’s Restaurant after researching the restaurants in the area it was the only one that I really wanted to go to. After the flower show we tried to call but they were not picking up the phone so we walked down and decided if we could not get a seat we would go somewhere else in the area. Although busy we were seated and ordered the local mixed mushroom crostone (oloroso sherry seared mushrooms, whipped hazelnut, pickled pear, fresno chili, mighty seeded sourdough bread) the flavors were exquisite and surprising as you would pick up something different in every bite. After this outstanding starter we had the Pappardelle (braised duck legs, chanterelle mushrooms, oloroso sherry, toasted hazelnut, parmesan) seeing the chef preparing it for us made our mouths water as the scent diffused over to us. It was total comfort food and great creamy earthy flavor of the chanterelle. We also ordered Grilled Spanish Octopus (cantimpalo chorizo, fingerling, cucumber, taggiasca olives, roasted peppers, fennel soubise, herbs) which was totally outstanding as an octopus lover I have had it a lot and this is the most succulent octopus I have ever had it practically melted in my mouth, and the other ingredients only complemented its flavor without being powerful by themselves. I am so very happy we were able to get a table because the meal was so delicious and memorable! The patrons at the bar were teasing us a little because most were having pizza and as it was presented to them it had a dark char burnt edge that we love. We decided to get pizza’s to go to have with some wine back at the room. We ordered the Calabrese (spicy coppa, garlic, tomato, fior di latte, nduja, caciocavallo, pickled chile, fresh oregano) and Salsiccia (garlic sausage, pickled long hots, caciocavallo, grilled spring onions) enjoyed a couple of slices with wine. They were good, but the other items that we ordered were outstanding! My sons enjoyed it reheated the next day! The next day before leaving we got a shoe-fly pie, two types of bacon (black forest, and applewood) and scrapple. Scrapple is a Pennsylvania Dutch pork product made of scraps, I saw a chef cook it on one of the episodes of Guy Ferri’s “Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives”, so I made it for breakfast the next day and found out we are not fans (we prefer our NJ Taylor Ham), but when in Philly!
Great quick trip and hope everyone gets a chance to visit Philadelphia where so much history from the start of our country took place, and at least one Philadelphia Flower Show beautifying your soul!
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