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Your guide to thrive at Philly’s annual botanical extravaganza

PHS presents the 2025 Philadelphia Flower Show: Gardens of Tomorrow

5 minute read
Large display with a riot of flower bouquets against a backdrop of the Philly skyline, with moss hanging from stylized clouds
‘Tending Our Roots,’ a Philadelphia Flower Show display by Robertson’s Flowers and Events. (Photo courtesy of PHS.)

This year's Philadelphia Flower Show, the annual botanical extravaganza from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS), feels beautifully overwhelming. My ears, eyes, and nose were entranced by the smell of lilacs, the sound of crickets, and the sight of futuristic sustainable gardens. While I felt that the 2024 show featured fewer designs than pre-pandemic shows, this year’s presentation, with the forward-facing theme Gardens of Tomorrow, boasts more than 30 major exhibitions and more than 200 marketplace vendors at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

It's a lot. So here's my guide to thrive at PHS’s 196th Flower Show.

Enjoy the showstoppers

Closeup on part of the ethereal display shows greenery, moss, an archway of vines, and water feature with swirling mist.
Detail of Ishihara Kazukuki Design Lab and Treeline Designz’s Flower Show display, titled ‘Tomorrow’s Eden – Gardens for a Changing World.’ (Photo courtesy of PHS.)

All the displays (more than 30) located in Hall A were intricately developed. The hot-pink geometric design in PHS’s Futura Florentia, featuring rose-embedded glass globes enveloped by a gentle rain, is gorgeous. I loved the Beatrix Potter-style farmhouse in Welcoming Wildlife Home from Jennifer Designs. A stairway to heaven from Simply Nia Design is another highlight, as well as the roller-coaster-inspired Color Carnival from Waldor Orchids. Bill Schaffer and Kristine Kratt's larger Tron-inspired ecosystem, Nexus, utilized an international 26-person team. Its sci-fi wizardry incorporates disembodied heads, wire wreaths, and hydroponic test tubes. Kazuyuki Ishihara and Iftikhar Ahmed of Treeline Designz collaborate brilliantly on Tomorrow’s Eden – Gardens for a Changing World, producing a multi-tiered forest-scape in the Convention Center. Give yourself time to appreciate the numerous moss layers, the smoky bogs, and the gentle forest path. These striking installations might require battling overwhelming crowds, but they’re definitely worth it.

Mozee, a Black woman, poses smiling in a gray cardigan and jeans next to her flower display’s welcome sign.
Nia Mozee of the Brooklyn-based Simply Nia Design poses next to her 2025 Flower Show display, ‘The Imagining of the Heavenly Gardens.’ (Photo by An Nichols.)

Pace yourself

Bring a water bottle for the refill stations. If you forget snacks, there are numerous food vendors. If you can't sit inside the main hall, use the Convention Center's lounge seating or the tables in Bloom City. Pace yourself. If you need to leave the show and return later in the day, you can get your hand stamped.

Honor the amateurs and youngsters

Flower Show Design Classes enable individuals, school groups, or clubs to exhibit their creativity with guided prompts. Normally, my expectations for elementary, high school, or college entrants are minimal, but this year, EVERYONE hit a home run. The Class 167: Window Box & Lamp Post designs, Class 161: Entryway designs, and Class 160: Garden imaginings are my favorite cottagecore arrangements. The larger exhibition contributions from Temple University, W.B. Saul High School, Lankenau Magnet High School, and Mercer County College spotlight gorgeous sustainable agriculture like aquaponics and hydroponics in the latter half of Hall A.

Time your visit

If you’re looking to avoid the crowds, there is a daily Early Morning Tour (8-10am), which includes all-day admission, and an “Out of This World!” after-hours dance party (21+) on Saturday, March 8, at 8:30pm. But if you just want to attend the show with a smaller crowd, try arriving before noon or after 4pm on the weekend (bonus: daily Twilight Tickets for entry after 4pm are $10 cheaper).

When I attended on opening weekend, there were SO MANY humans rocking the latest botanical-inspired fashions. (If I missed you, don't worry, I saw you). You looked fabulous. Even if you don’t wear futuristic floral stylings, do check out the “Purple Rain” hat installation from Class 180.

  • Two Black women wearing flower crowns smile together, one in a blue floral-patterned dress and the other in a sky-blue one.
    Fashionable attendees at the 2025 Flower Show. (Photo by An Nichols.)
  • Two Black women pose smiling together in dresses with lavish color, shape, texture, and accessories.
    Fashionable attendees at the 2025 Flower Show. (Photo by An Nichols.)
  • Two white people pose together smiling, wearing blue shirts and flower crowns.
    Fashionable attendees of the 2025 Philadelphia Flower Show. (Photo by An Nichols.)

Find education and inspiration

The focus on sustainability helps educate attendees on creative hydroponic usage, from glass test tubes to crystal spheres to space-saving inverted designs. Don’t Call It Dirt, Don’t Call It Trash, an exhibit by the design studio OLIN and Remark Glass, replaces biological plants with glass replicas constructed from glass waste. Did you know seven million tons of unrecycled glass are tossed into US landfills annually? OLIN’s informative display reminds us to be mindful. Similarly, Ahti Lyra’s concrete jungle illustrates that plants still grow in the most urban environments.

The Hamilton Horticourt boasts prize-winning individual plants of every description, and extensive art displays include dioramas, miniature arrangements, photography, watercolor, and stunning plant-based collages from professional and student artists alike.

Support small businesses

While larger sponsors offer impressive botanical rose gardens (Hendrick’s Gin), multi-colored fashion cubes (QVC), and green glass roof tiles surrounding a multi-media display and influencer garden (City of Qingdao), the regional vendors equally need our support. Ti-a Woven Goods, a woman-led business offering imported handwoven goods, has 833 weavers from Bolgatanga, Ghana. COPA Soaps, an all-natural, Philly-based, Black-owned business, has a 25-year history.

If you’re looking for more fanciful fashions, check out Bohemian Pink’s glitter butterflies, Christine Shirley’s lemon and strawberry knit cardigans, or Soul and Story’s carpet bags. Outside the Exhibition Hall, Bloom City boasts the PA Game Commission seed giveaway, reps for New Jersey tourism giving away free saltwater taffy, and even more artisans selling pet portraits, succulents, and more.

Keep photos fun for everyone

If your social media photos require extra staging time, PHS offers daily Early Morning Photography Tours from 8-10am. But if you can’t make it that early, be considerate of the crowd. Do not spend 20 minutes taking 30 shots while 50 people wait. On the flip side, stay aware and give other photographers a moment by not walking in front of their shot. (Shout-out to the numerous women who offered to assist me.) And high fives to everyone waiting in line on Saturday to take selfies in the botanical bar’s rose-trellised swing. I loved seeing so many people eagerly volunteer to help stage each other’s photos.

Dramatically lit display of small trees, hundreds of flowering plants, vines, fake flames, and white-lit vertical elements.
A Flower Show display by the American Institute of Floral Designers. (Photo courtesy of PHS.)

Find hope for the future

While the current presidential administration may rescind federal environmental protections, the 196th Philadelphia Flower Show gives me hope for the future. Yes, our current administration might rescind the finding that greenhouse gases are dangerous. Yes, National Park workers, including a pair from Alaska who are fighting back, are being let go. Yes, a recent executive order would increase logging in national forests (and we might deal with the formaldehyde impacts sooner than expected).

But this show’s focus on “a healthier, more sustainable, more beautiful future," according to PHS president Matt Rader, gives me hope. No matter what, even the starkest urban landscape will grow flowers from the cracks. The Flower Show is an urban oasis offering cultivated beauty, inspiration, and peace. Check it out before it closes on Sunday, March 9, 2025.

What, When, Where

2025 PHS Philadelphia Flower Show: Gardens of Tomorrow. $20-$40. Through March 9, 2025, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, 1101 Arch Street, Philadelphia. (215) 988-8800 or phsonline.org.

Accessibility

The PA Convention Center is a wheelchair-accessible venue. The Flower Show has wheelchairs, motorized scooters, and strollers for rent, with advance reservations through the website suggested.

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