Philadelphia Flower Show - Roots

 I want to point out that not all displays at the Philadelphia Flower Show are stuffed with colorful flowers, and or exotic species of plants; this is a much more natural-looking display. This is one of the commercial ones- they are eligible for different kinds of awards, and this won three of them. One was for the best display of forced blooms (getting plants to bloom at a time that is not natural for them- and this is a big part of the Flower Show. It's largely fantasy, because one could never have a garden that would look like the display ones.)

This exhibit is just called "Roots." The sign says, "Shrouded in mystery because we usually can't see them, roots are key to a plant's life systems..."

I wouldn't want the entire show to be like the un-leafed landscape I left home to escape, but I do appreciate how natural this is. I suspect it's pretty foreign to a lot of the city dwellers who attend.

This photo features a Virginia Pine, Pinus virginianus, which is native to the region of New Jersey and south, so that was perfect for Philadelphia.

Almost every display with a water feature seemed to have found a new "trick." There is some mechanism that allows the water to look very foamy- like it came from a waterfall or whirlpool- but it disperses very quickly and doesn't overwhelm the rest of the water surface. This is a good example of its use.

You can see the needles of the Virginia Pine better in this picture, on the right. Red-osier dogwood in the front. That's also native and appropriate.

And in this picture you can see some of the flowers they forced. Now... keep in mind that most of these are garden varieties, so they shouldn't be found in a natural area like this is portraying. Just remember that we are all there for the fantasy!

The white is Saxifraga x arendsii 'White.' The blue is a Pulmonaria, and the pink is some Dianthus.

I have to confess that I didn't do hardly anything I was supposed to today. I got involved in a pet project and never got to being disciplined.

I'm a little sore (not really bad) from yesterday, and I'm blaming it on that!

See PFS-Store Window