Photo courtesy of Longwood Gardens
This is the final week for Longwood Garden's spring show, "Lilytopia."
Inspired by the world-famous lily show at Holland's Keukenhof, Longwood has transformed the East Conservatory into a showcase of the newest varieties of lilies from Dutch hybridizers.
In addtion, a display of more than 10,000 cut stemps was designed by renowned Dutch floral designer Dorien van den Berg.
The show closes on Monday, Memorial Day.
Photo credits: Kathryn Blom
Baltimore's Rawlings Conservatory opens its spring flower show Saturday and the theme this year is very Peter Pan and Wendy.
Titled "Spring into Neverland," the show in the glass house in Druid Hill Park features a crocodile and a flying ship with Captain Hook aboard, in addition to an incredible array of tulips, daffodils and other spring bulbs.
The doors open at 10 a.m. on Saturday and will continue, Wednesday through Sunday, until May 1. (The Conservatory is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.)
There is no admission charge but donations are appreciated. This is perfect kid-friendly event on what might prove to be a rainy weekend in Baltimore.
Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Susan Reimer
A postscript to The Philadelphia Flower Show: 265,000 visitors attended the show, up 12 percent from last year.
“Springtime in Paris” featured highly styled French gardens, over-the-top floral displays, cutting-edge landscape designs, new plant introductions, more than 150 gardening presentations by experts from around the world, fine wines and celebrity chefs, and an illuminated Eiffel Tower, and it drew visitors from every state in the nation, according to show officials.
Popular guests included singer Patti LaBelle. After a guided tour, Ms. LaBelle declared: “I’m in wonderland.”
U.S. News & World Report, which covered the appearance of White House florist Laura Dowling, said: “The Philadelphia International Flower Show is no longer Philly's little secret. It has become a national phenomenon that is creating jobs, generating $61 million in economic impact, and is now drawing the praise and input from Washington.” AAA World recommended a visit to “the premier gardening event of its kind in the world.” CNN touted the show nationally as one of the “12 places to see beautiful blooms.”
Internationally, the China-based Epoch Times said: “This show is the nation’s premier horticultural event with acres of gardens, parks and floral displays. …This year’s show offered the casual visitor or the die-hard floral designer a flower fix extraordinaire with French flair.”
It is the last weekend for both the Philadelphia Flower Show and the Maryland Home & Garden Show, but it is also the first weekend for the Homestead Gardens flower show.
Philadelphia closes the 8-day stand of "Springtime in Paris" on Sunday. If you didn't make it up I-95, we have a photo gallery for your viewing pleasure.
Likewise, the Maryland Home & Garden Show at the state fairgrounds in Timonium concludes its "Symphony in Spring" on Sunday, and Dennis Hockman writes about judging the best landscapes in the At Home section of The Baltimore Sun. We have a photo gallery from the show as well.
The good news is, Homestead Gardens in Davidsonville opens its two-week flower show, "Meditteranean Retreat," this weekend with lots of displays and seminars.
Immerse yourself in the classic elements of the Mediterranean garden as it has been cultivated for centuries in France, Italy and Greece. Fragrant herbs are seamlessly blended with bright, brilliant flowers and accented by bubbling fountains to create a tranquil retreat that appeals to all the senses. Patios and trellises provide cool refuge from the intense sun and, when accented by vegetables and citrus in beautifully traditional pottery creates a space that becomes an extension of your home for entertaining.
Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Susan Reimer
If you can't get enough of the Philadelphia Flower Show, visit Ginny Smith on her Philadelphia Inquirer blog, Kiss the Earth.
Ginny, who is a first-class reporter, has some wonderful behind-the-scenes vignettes from the show, including one about the popularity of the bar on the show floor and the fact that the "Ask a Gardener" booth typically fields 13,000 garden questions during the show.
But Ginny also does a wonderful job of explaining one of my favorite displays at the show, Michael Bruce's "Urban Graffiti Shadow Art."
He used found objects and just plain junk, put it together so that is resembles absolutely nothing, shines a light on it and it throws a shadow on a white screen that looks like a lady with a hat and shopping bags and a poddle on a leash, or a can-can dancer or a lady in a tub. It is wild!
There is plenty more on Ginny's blog for the Flower Show Fanatic!
The Philadelphia Flower Show, which hinted that it might be moving toward a kind of edginess last year, swung back to its roots with an opulent, romantic vision of Paris at the turn of the 20th century this year: "Springtime in Paris."
The show, which runs March 6 through 13 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in downtown Philadelphia, chose as its centerpiece, of course, the Eiffel Tower.
A 37-foot tall replica of the base of the Tower provides the archway into the show, and it is surrounded by six gardens which convey a magical time in Paris history just before World War I.
The Tower is surrounded by six showcase gardens and each evokes an element of Paris during "La Belle Epogue," including a carousel, the parlor of an aristocrat's wife, a wedding at Notre Dame, an even the dark and gloomy catacombs beneath the city.
Every aspect of the show says Paris, from the tiny patisserie, the artist's cottage, the hair designs, the shop windows, and, of course, haute couture. All of it either embellished with flowers or made of floral material.
(Visit the first installment on my photo gallery of the show. on Flickr.com
Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Susan Reimer
Continue reading "Philadelphia Flower Show: We'll always have Paris" »
Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Susan Reimer
We have a winner!
Dennis Hockman of Chesapeake Home magazine was kind enough to ask me along while he judged the landscape designs at the Maryland Home & Garden Show, and I am delighted to say that I liked best when he liked best!
This design by newcomer Arbor Ridge Services of Kingsville, Md., won the magazine's top honors. All sorts of other awards will be given by different judges at the show, but from the buzz around this one, it could be the surprise big winner this year.
Continue reading "Maryland Home & Garden Show: And the winner is..." »
Oh, the places a press pass will get you.I got an early look at the landscape designs at the Maryland Home & Garden Show at the state fairgrounds in Timonium, which opens to the public Saturday March 5 and runs the following weekend, too.Need tickets? I have three pairs, one each for the first three Garden Variety readers to post a comment.
Continue reading "Maryland Home & Garden Show: a sneak preview" »
For years, the Philadelphia Flower Show has been the unofficial first day of spring for gardeners up and down the Mid-Atlantic.
Again this year, I will be driving the two hours up Interstate 95 on Saturday, the show's media day before its official opening on Sunday, and I will be sending photos on Facebook and Twitter so Garden Variety readers can come along for the ride!
The theme for this year's show is "Springtime in Paris," and the centerpiece will be, of course, and Eiffel Tower!
The show is in its 182nd year and it generates about $61 million in tourist money for the area around the city during its 8-day run, March 6 to 13.
More than 250,000 attend and, indeed, if you don't pick the time of your visit carefully (after 4 p.m. on a weekday), it can feel like they are all there with you.
It costs the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, and its co-sponsors, about $8 million to stage the show, and the proceeds from the tickets -- about $1 million -- go to greening programs in Philadelphia.
Continue reading "Philadelphia Flower Show: We're on our way!" »
Philadelphia Flower Show, 2010. Photo courtesy of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.
I am getting ready to write a travel story about the august Philadelphia Flower Show that opens March 6, and I am wondering: Are you going? And how are you getting there?
Does your group or your business have a bus tour going? Are you driving with friends? Are you staying overnight? Are you planning to dine out at the show? If so, where?
I'd love to hear about your plans and your recommendations.
Me? I hope to go Saturday, March 5 for the media preview. And I will be live Tweeting and Facebooking from the show -- with pictures!
The theme this year is perfect: "Springtime in Paris."
Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Kim Hairston
“Mums, Mischief and Merriment,” the fall garden show at the Rawlings Conservatory in Druid Hill Park, opens Saturday and runs through Sunday, Nov. 21.
The medieval theme includes a lady dragon made of mums and her glittering mosaic egg, knights, and towering castle walls. There are shields and banners and a stockade.
Oh. Right. And 40 varieties of mums, including 1,300 in pots and hundreds more in the body of the dragon and in the hanging mum "balls."
Baltimore Sun photographer Kim Hairston put together a photo gallery from the show.
Enjoy them, but make sure you see the show in person.
The Conservatory is open Wednesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free, but a $5 donation by adults is suggested
The Royal Horticultural Society Spring Flower Show is underway in London this week on the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, and it is arguably the most famous flower show in the world and as much a part of the London social season as the races at Ascot.
Queen Elizabeth was there to visit the show gardens, and you can have one, too, by visiting the RHS Chelsea web site for a copy of the plans.
Garden Variety has put together a slideshow of photos from Chelsea, so you can visit the show without a plane ticket.
Streptocarpus 'Harlequin Blue' was judged Plant of the Year at the show. In second place was 'Ruby Ruby' and in third was the Cypripedium flavum, an orchid variety.
You can see a slideshow of the "short list" of 20 plants considered for the honors here.
Photo credits: Baltimore Sun/Susan Reimer
Bright sun and cool breezes were the honored guests as Bryn Mawr third-graders took up the ribbons of the Maypole and danced open Baltimore’s Flowermart Friday.
True devotees do not admit to there ever having been bad weather in the 93 years of the festival in Mount Vernon Square. But the first day of this year’s two-day event was particularly auspicious.
“Everybody is so happy,” gushed Josie Fraley from underneath a straw hat covered with flowers and the Flowermart’s signature treat: lemons with peppermint sticks.
She and friend Mary Sheppard, who was wearing an equally elaborately decorated hat, were stopped often by camera carriers asking to take a picture. “I feel like a celebrity,” said Sheppard.
The women were headed to the crab cake vendor for lunch. “That’s the other reason you come to Flowermart,” said Fraley, who’d already made her flower purchases.
Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Jed Kirschbaum
It's lemonsticks for Garden Variety today.
I will be at Flowermart at Mount Vernon Square in the city, visiting all the school kids' booths and flower sales. Not to mention the food vendors.
My colleague Jacques Kelly has a wonderful story in The Sun about the 93 years of Flowermart and how it has evolved into a multi-generational event for city dwellers.
Photo credits: Baltimore Sun/Susan Reimer
Some of the May baskets were wilting in the 80-plus degree heat of downtown Annapolis -- and so was the valiant Garden Variety -- but I have pictures from the 55th annual May basket competition in Annapolis.
Visit my Flickr slideshow of the baskets.
You will also be able to see a photo gallery with captions at baltimoresun.com.
It makes perfect "scents" when you think about it. There is no better forum to learn about the relationship between plants and the sense of smell than in a conservatory, and that's what Longwood Gardens has done for its first major exhibit this year.
I write about the Kennett Square, Pa., show, "Making Scents: The Art and Passion of Fragrance," in The Sun's Travel section Sunday. Like so much at the du Pont family bequest, it is not to be missed.
The show runs through November so that it can draw on the changing seasons to tell the story of fragrance. But if you go soon, you will also see the extraordinary tulip displays both in the Idea Garden and in the Garden Walk. More than 200,000 bulbs are planted -- new ones each year -- for the Longwood displays.
Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Jed Kirschbaum
Art Blooms, a display of floral arrangements at Baltimore's Walters Art Museum, sets garden club members loose each year to interpret with flowers the art works in the museum, and it is on display this weekend. For free.
Our own Jed Kirschbaum, Baltimore Sun photographer, paid a visit to the show and created his own work of art: a photo gallery of the floral arrangements there.
This is one of Jed's photos. For the rest, check out his display at baltimoresun.com.
Art Blooms, a presentation of the Women's Committee of the Walters, is on display today through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free. There are lectures and docent-led tours as well.
The spring flower show at Baltimore's Rawlings Conservatory and Botanic Gardens, featuring The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, is posting record attendance numbers, says director Kate Blom.
Through nine days of the show -- and with four days to go -- 2,582 visitors have toured the gardens in Baltimore's Druid Hill Park. That's more than the 2,093 that attended during last year's show.
The show runs through April 11. The Conservatory is open Tuesday through Sundays, including Easter Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (The Conservatory is closed Mondays.)
The flower show is free, though a $3 donation is gratefully accepted.
Photo credit: Michael Lemmon
Road trip! Road trip!
Garden Variety heads to Longwood Gardens outside Philadelphia today to preview its first major exhibition of the season: Making Scents: The Art and Passion of Fragrance.
The exhibit opens April 10 and runs through Nov. 21, during which the Gardens' Conservatory will be transformed into a museum for the senses.
You will be able to see the actual plants and flowers behind those iconic perfumes, explore the power of the sense of smell and learn about the intersection of art and science behind fragrance.
Stay tuned for more upon my return.
Photo credit: Gary Mihoces
This is how you can tell you are at a flower show.
Photo credit: Gary Mihoces
Garden Variety returned to her roots this weekend, visiting family in Pittsburgh.
Because she makes her living as a garden blogger, Garden Variety used her executive authority to take a group of 10 (count 'em) to the Phipps Conservatory for its Spring Flower Show, a tradition since Garden Variety was a seedling.
Even the men in the group admitted that the Conservatory experience was a very relaxing one.
(For more on the Conservatory, read on. For more pictures, taken by Blog Spouse Gary Mihoces, visit my Flickr collection.)
Greetings from Pittsburgh, where Garden Variety is hanging out with family and dragging them to yet another spring flower show!!!!
This was was at the Phipps Conservatory, where even the reluctant men in our party were delightfully surprised by the calm and beauty of a flower show. Even the 7-year-old seemed pleased!
Stay tuned. Pictures will be up tomorrow. I hope. Wireless Internet hasn't yet made it to every corner of my hometown.
Photo credit: Michael Lemmon
The hyacinth is one of the stars of the Spring Flower Show at Baltimore's Rawlings Conservatory, now through April 11.
This is part of the hyacinth's story...
'Thou diest, Hyacinth, ' so spoke Apollo, 'robbed of thy youth by me. My lyre shall celebrate thee, my song shall tell thy fate, and thou shalt become a flower inscribed with my regrets.'
So ends the Greek myth of Apollo and Hyacinthus.
The two were taking turns throwing a discus. Zephyr the West Wind grew jealous of their friendship. He caused the discus to hit Hyacinthus in the head, instantly killing him.
Instead of letting Hyacinthus pass to the underworld of Hades, Apollo changed him into a small flower and allowed him to return every spring.
The Rawlings Conservatory and Botanic Gardens in Baltimore's Druid Hill Park celebrates spring Saturday with a flower show dedicated to L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," a book first published in 1900, about the same time the Conservatory was built.
Working from a 1939 reprint of the book, manager Kate Blom has decorated the Conservatory's rooms with Dorothy, Tin Man, Lion, Scarecrow and all sorts of Munchkins that reflect not the MGM movie, but the original illustrations by W.W. Denslow.
And then she added 20,000 spring bulbs.(For a sneak peak at the Flower Show, see Ken Lam's photo gallery at baltimoresun.com.)
Tulips, daffodils, narcissus, hyacinth and lilies in colors from bright white to deep purple surround the story book characters as they make their way along a yellow brick road that is, well, yellow highway tape cut into brick shapes.
Always looking for a bargain to make her conservatory budget go further, Blom also borrow a miniature house from the city's Safety City display.She got the throne for the Wizard and the curtain that hides him from Center Stage Theater.
And she was the grateful recipient of a wagon, two-way radios and a new hose reel from the Homeland Garden Club.
"It was like Christmas," she said.
Continue reading "An "Oz-some" flower show at Baltimore's Conservatory" »
San Francisco is a long way from us here at Garden Variety. But one of my favorite blogging photographers, Laura Mathews of Punk Rock Gardens, [http://punkrockgardens.com/]put this slideshow of images together from the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show - and then put it to music. Enjoy!
Jeff Holper, the "Mole Hunter," with tens of thousands of "kills" to his credit, appears this weekend at the Maryland Home & Garden Show at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium.
As I've mentioned before, I once planted 150 tulip bulbs and not a single one came up the following spring, but voles were seen in my yard, laying on their backs and patting their stomachs.
I asked Holper about the difference between moles and voles.
"A vole is a rodent and a mole is an insectivore," he told me. "A vole is a heavy vegetation eater - bulbs, seeds, hostas -- and they are the most prolific. A female can be pregnant within 24 hours of a litter and can produce 200 babies a year.
"They can be serious when they hit a garden."
Top photo: a mole. Bottom photo: a vole.
Continue reading "Maryland Home & Garden Show: Mole hunting " »
Flower show season continues this weekend at Homestead Gardens in Davidsonville, beginning with a preview night Friday night from 6 to 8 p.m.
"Kaleidoscope of Color" is the title of the show, and color, lots of color, will take center stage.
Workshops the first weekend include:
Saturday, 11am: Beneficial Flowers: Mike McGrath, the WTOP Garden Guru, demonstrates how to use flowers to attract 'good insects' to naturally control all your garden pests.
1pm: Backyard Fruit Production: Learn how to grow your own fruit in your own back yard. Learn Learn about planting, fertilizing, spraying and pruning.
Sunday, noon: Get Your Lawn Off Drugs: WTOP Garden Guru Mike McGrath will reveal the products--and closely guarded trade secrets--that help your grass look its best: Naturally.
2pm: Creating Color Combos That Work: Color works in mass as well as smaller containers. Faith Savage from Goldsmith Seeds is doing some hands-on demonstrations to show you practical color pairings.
3pm: Six Principles of Colorscaping: Discover how simple it is to plant stunning colorscape designs. Dean Bemis of Goldsmith Seeds has been designing annual flower beds for the golf course industry for over 20 years, but you can learn his “less is more” techniques in an hour.
Photos courtesy of Homestead Gardens/Melanie McCabe
Photo credit: Gary Mihoces
The theme for this year's Maryland Home & Garden Show is "Wine and Dine al Fresco," and there are wine bottles everywhere!
No one executed that theme more thoroughly than the folks at Porter Landscaping.
Not only did they create a dinner plate and silverware in the stone pavers, they had a fountain made entirely of stacked wine bottles and wine bottle plant markers!
For more pictures of this display, keep reading. For more pictures of the show, go to my Flickr page.
Garden Variety readers who'd like to meet the gardener behind the blog, take note.
I will be at the Maryland Home & Garden Show, just inside the entrance, on Saturday afternoon after 2 p.m. handing out copies of my fridge magnets.
Be warned. I am not a gardening expert. I am a writer who gardens and who gets to call up the experts and ask questions. So I probably can't answer a single garden question.
But we can chat anyway!
Photo credit: European Landscapes and Design
How do you plant a garden inside?
"It takes a lot of planning," said Glen Gutierrez of European Landscapes and Design of Lutherville.
Not to mention 100 tons of stone, 200 to 300 tons of crushed base material and mulch. And more stone to build a 100-foot border wall.
Gutierrez's design won Best in Show at last year's Maryland Home & Garden Show at the state fairgrounds in Timonium. And he will try to out-do himself this year with a display garden twice the size at this year's show, which opens Saturday and runs for two weekends.
Plans call for an amphitheater made of boulders, a terrace made of slaps of rock and a huge, rustic pergola made of heavy timber.
"It will be like a ruins garden," said Guitierrez.
His staff built a model of what they wanted to do this year, and the model will be on display as well.
"I have a lot of good people and when we decided what we wanted to do, I just let them go."
His display garden will cover about 2,000 square feet at the show, about twice the size of the other gardens. It will include 15 Japanese cypress, cherry trees and 1,000 red tulips.
Gutierrez said such a display costs anywhere from $25,000 to $40,000 to stage, depending on different factors. Labor is the big cost: $10,000 for the five days it takes to pull it all together.
"This year, we have a big project in Ruxton where most of the material will go," he said. "That makes it much more do-able."
European Landscape and Design isn't looking to snag 100 new customers with a display like this at the show.
"We're not a volume business. If we get one or two of the kinds of customers who understand what we do, that would be good. And they are out there."
Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Susan Reimer
In the old days of the newspaper business - you remember the newspaper business, right? - we would have referred to The Washington Post as OPN. Opposition newspaper. That way, we would never have to speak the dreaded name outloud or in messages.
But I can't help but call attention to Adrian Higgins' take on the Philadelphia Flower Show. He gets things so right.
Continue reading "Philadelphia Flower Show: Adrian Higgins weighs in " »
And, we have the winners!
We have selected four winners from among those Garden Variety readers who commented on my post about the Maryland Home, Garden & Living Show at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium.
They are Wendy, Urbiecake, Julie and Andrew Haslett.
I will be emailing the winners to ask for their mailing addresses so I can mail the tickets in time for Saturday's opening of the two-weekend event.
And thanks to everyone who commented!
If you are like me and would like to throw down a sleeping bag and spend the week at the Philadelphia International Flower Show, an afternoon among the display gardens doesn't get it done.
Those of you who are going - and the poor souls who are not -- can follow the blog reports of Philadelphia Inquirer garden writer Ginny Smith on Kiss the Earth.
Ginny has been writing fresh tidbits every day since before the show even opened, so check on some of her earlier pieces.
She is a veteran garden writer and a veteran of the show. Her inside information is terrific.
Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Susan Reimer
Continue reading "If you can't get enough of the Philadelphia Flower Show..." »
Continue reading "Wordless Wednesday: Baltimore team at the Philadelphia Flower Show" »
The Maryland Home, Garden & Living Show opens the first of its two weekends at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium Saturday, and I have three pairs of tickets to share!
The show features Joey Green this weekend. He's the mad scientist of clean, who once got Barbara Walters to wrap a wet Pampers around her head.
Next weekend, Jeff "Mole Hunter" Holper, with 10,000 mole kills to his name, will be entertaining audiences with his strategies for killing those pesky garden creatures.
Continue reading "Maryland Home & Garden Show: tickets are on me" »
Like many of us at the Philadelphia International Flower Show, photographer and garden blogger Laura Mathews of Punk Rock Gardens lost control. Check out her rockin' slide show!
After Saturday at the Philadelphia International Flower Show, which gives new meaning to the expression "flight of fancy," it was a different kind of pleasure to attend the Pennsylvania Garden Expo in Harrisburg Sunday.
The display gardens are actually something a real homeowner could recreate and the crafts, food and garden art were modestly priced. It cost $8 to park at the show and some attendees complained. But I spend $27 to park in Philly!
Continue reading "Pennsylvania Garden Expo: approachable gardening" »
The designs were done in giant corregated steel containers of the type they might load on ships, stacked side-by-side and on top of one another. Around the containers were cement blocks used as planters.
In one of the containers sitting precariously overhead the plants appeared to be floating weightlessly.
In another, a delivery of white flowers seems to have been knocked around badly during shipping.
Continue reading "Philadelphia International Flower Show: with an edge" »
Tiny vases were suspended on transparent guide wires and the flowers and the water in each vase, of different colors, depicted the Earth from the top of the mountains (white flowers: snow) sloping down to the ocean (bright blue flowers.)
The message seemed to be that the majesty of the Earth, from mountain tops to ocean shores, contrasts sharply with its fragility, represented by the tiny vases, the guide wires and the small flowers.
I might be making this up, but that is what the display said to me.
I was there for what I would describe as the "soft opening" of the Philadelphia International Flower Show Saturday.
It was supposed to be a "media day," but there was a substantial crowd and, with the shrinking of the newspaper industry, I am pretty sure they were not all reporters.
The bad news is, we only had three hours at the show and you need more time than that to see everything. The good news is, the Marketplace was in full swing and shopping happened!!!!
I have some thoughts about the show, and I will share those in upcoming posts. But if you'd like to see my pictures (OK, I'm no pro), you can go to my Flickr account.
Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Susan Reimer
Homestead Gardens in Davidsonville is planning a bus trip to the Philadelphia Flower Show on Tuesday, March 2.
The bus leaves from Homestead at 9 a.m., costs $65, includes an admission ticket and a light snack.
Passengers will have from 12:30 to 6 p.m. at the show.
Register at Customer Service or by calling 410.798.5000.
I've been working this week on a package of stories for Friday's LIVE section of the Baltimore Sun on the Philadelphia Flower Show, and that's kept me pretty busy.
(The Show opens Sunday at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in downtown Philadelphia and continues through March 7.)
The stories include information on driving, parking and ticket costs and a preview of the show. (It is kind of hard to write about something you haven't seen from a description provided by someone else who hasn't seen it! The show takes only days to stage.)
The Philly Flower Show is the most ambitious indoor garden show in the world and it covers 10 acres inside the Convention Center. That's a lot of ground to cover, so here are some tips for the Flower Show visitors.
And finally, the Flower Show Web site has all the information you need, and more. You can even purchase your tickets on line. Go to theflowershow.com.
(Note: I didn't get to include these tips in the LIVE package on the show. Only Garden Variety readers will see them!)
The Philadelphia International Flower Show is only a week away. Surely spring is not far behind.
I have always used the Philly Flower Show as a kind of high water mark for winter. More than once, I have driven to Philadelphia in snow to attend. But once you breathe in the scent of all those flowers in the Pennsylvania Convention Center, it is hard to remember it is winter outside.The flower show began in 1829 and became an opportunity for the Main Line matrons of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to show off their hot-house blooms and their extravagant arrangements.
Part of that has carried over with the judging of specimens in dozens of categories. And there are arrangements to be judged as well, although each might fill hundreds of square feet of floor space and include live trees and waterfalls!
The Philadelphia Flower show is just a month away, a sure sign that spring is just around the corner.
The grand-daddy of them all, the flower show has added "International" to its title this year and, fittingly, the theme is "Passport to the World."
A 28-foot-high hot-air balloon, covered with more than 79,000 dried flowers, will greet visitors to the Pennsylvania Convention Center. It will tower over the Explorer's Garden, a display of exotic plants that recall the flower show's original purpose: to highlight new plants.
And that's only the beginning. There is food, drink, fashion, entertainment, garden seminars and some of the best shopping anywhere.
Garden Variety will be describing plans for the flower show over the next month, culminating in a preview of the show before it officially opens on Sunday Feb. 28. The show will continue through Sunday, March 7.
Susan Reimer has spent 16 years writing about raising kids - among other topics - in her column for The Baltimore Sun. And every time son Joseph or daughter Jessie passed another milestone - driver's license, college, wedding or a move to a new military duty station - she has planted another garden. Now she will be writing about those gardens - and yours - here on Garden Variety. 
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