Frank Festa
Whoever said Holland had the happiest people in the world has clearly never been to the City of Brotherly Love.
2017’s Edition of the PHS Philadelphia Flower Show kicked off this past Saturday at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, welcoming thousands of patrons. This year’s theme, “Holland: Flowering The World,” promises to provide a vibrant atmosphere, featuring towering windmills, florists eager to sell favorites at reasonable prices, fluorescently painted bikes and a 36-foot-tall geodesic Ecodome straight from the Netherlands. Last year’s show paid homage to the 100 year anniversary of the National Park Service, with the year prior featuring beloved characters from the Disney Universe.
This year, over 3,500 people volunteered to take the roughly 250,000-plus expected visitors on a trip to the flower capital of the world. With a rich history in horticulture, Holland is the worlds largest exporter of flowers – tulips, specifically. The Dutch plant three billion tulips each year, and subsequently export about two billion of them around the world.
Whether you’re a passionate horticulturists who has been waiting all year for the company of fellow aficionados, an amateur photographer, or just someone who loves the smell of a freshly bloomed tulip, the PHS Philadelphia Flower Show undoubtedly has something for you. The show, which is the longest running and largest of its kind, will be open throughout the week and until Sunday March 19th. For more details, head to theflowershow.com.