Philadelphia Flower Show, the world’s oldest and biggest garden show, was again a huge success this year with the theme, Holland: Flowering the World, a homage to Dutch horticultural expertise.
It was the third time I have attended the show and again it packed a magical artistic punch with sensational, artistic floral displays and great individual show gardens.
For the Dutch theme, the show constructed a large Amsterdam-style canal bridge and covered with tulips and daffodils, some in baskets on bicycles.
A sculpture consisting of dozens of white bicycles piled into towers and covered with gerberas was a tribute to the White Bicycle Plan of the 1960s when a counter-culture movement put free white bicycles all over Amsterdam.
If you get a chance to go to this show, seize it: you will find Philadelphia a wonderful town with a wealth of art galleries and museums and a delightful urban food market right downtown called the Reading Terminal Market. The city is also a great lover of public art and all new developments are required to devote some space to art. There are also countless murals covering walls throughout the city.
In addition to all of this, there is the historic old town – home to the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and so many other historic monuments dating back to the days of Ben Franklin and other leading pioneers.
But you will be totally impressed by the flower show, which is excellent on many levels, but especially for its stunning floral content. The Dutch bridge at the entrance this year was surrounded by more than 40,000 tulips. Quite a sight.
