Lights! Camera! Action! Flowers!
As visitors enter the 2015 PHS Philadelphia Flower Show they walk on a red carpet through a lit movie palace marquee, past reflecting pools and search lights toward a towering 25-foot tall floral arrangement that includes lilies and forsythia flanked by stately palm trees. Presto, they’ve entered a fantasy world inspired by Hollywood movies. Indeed, this year’s show is called “Celebrate the Movies.”
Overhead, enormous chandeliers resplendent with glass beads help to create an aura of opulence.
On Thursday, Barbara King, president of Valley Forge Flowers was in the thick of things, setting up the striking entrance display. Valley Forge Flowers provided some 10,000 roses – many named for movie stars such as Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe and Henry Fonda – and some 100,000 dried flowers that grace the top of the marquee. The dried flowers feature roses, thistle, status, hydrangea, amaranths, millet, straw flowers, wild flowers, heather and moss, King said.
A plethora of roses and lilies filled scrumptious arrangements poised over the reflecting pools. In addition to roses, there are hostas, lilies, geraniums, a bevy of begonias, poppies and salvia surrounding the pools flanking the marquee.
As small front end loaders ferried soil here and there, workers scurried around King, who took time out to talk to a reporter. This is the ninth year that her shop has provided flowers and plants for the show’s entrance. About 10 people per day from Valley Forge Flowers have spent the last six weeks getting ready and now 15 were there, along with volunteers to create the entryway magic.
“I am thrilled and excited,” said King. “We have an entrance that is going to really wow people from beginning to end.”
When visitors step into the flower show this year, they’ll smell the heavenly scent of the roses, a harbinger of spring and summer.
“The Philadelphia Flower Show is our first taste of spring,” said King. “It will take your breath away. Visitors will notice the fragrance of the flowers.”
King, a Wayne resident, who grew up with a flower shop owned by her parents, said, “There is such tradition in the Philadelphia Flower Show. We compete in a lot of flower shows and they are all rewarding but there is something about the nostalgia of the Philadelphia Flower Show, the level of competition. We know what a special treat it is.”
King looked forward to showing her work to Dodo Hamilton, the long-time doyenne and benefactor of the flower show who returned from Florida for the show.
Sam Lemheney, a West Chester resident who grew up in Bryn Mawr, is the chief of shows and events for the Philadelphia Horticultural Society, and chief designer of the flower show. The idea of the marquee came from the heyday of movie theaters in the 1920s and 1930s, replete with art deco touches, he said.
“I wanted people to walk into the entrance and feel like they’re entering a premiere,” Lemheney said. Like King, he grew up around plants, the son of a florist. His grandfather had been a landscaper. And like King, Lemheney is a graduate of Archbishop Carroll High School. He earned a degree in plant science from the University of Delaware and then worked for Disney. Lemheney is pleased that Disney is a partner in the Philadelphia Flower Show this year.
“This couldn’t be more perfect,” he said. A movie screen on the back of the marquee will cycle through Disney and Disney Pixar hits such as “Cars,” “Frozen” and “Cinderella.” Movie theme music filled the air and a nearby baby grand piano stood at the ready across from a metal sculpture crafted of film reels.
Peter Irwin, of Irwin Landscaping in Delaware, also provided plants used in the entrance display, with others supplied by Peace Tree Farm in Bucks County, Lemheney said. The elegant hostas came from Stoney Bank Nurseries in Glen Mills.
About 15 people from Valley Forge Flowers have been working long hours to craft the cut-and-dried flowers into perfection.
“The designers are here day and night, like ‘Night in the Museum,’” said King. “All the designers have such a passion for it.” During the show, they will come in every morning and replace dead buds, she said, and on Wednesday the entire display will be revamped so visitors will see fresh flowers throughout the week.
About a week ago, when horticulturalists began to bring plants into the Philadelphia Convention Center they were greeted by ice indoors from the extreme cold, said King. There was “a plant emergency,” she said.
“There was ice on the Convention Center floor,” said King. “Plants were freezing before our eyes.” But exhibitors made phone calls and trucks delivered replacements.
“Plant people are resilient,” she said. “The best-laid plans better have flexibility.”
Once the show ends, King will be ready for spring. The new Barn at Valley Forge Flowers is gearing up for spring gardening. Along with familiar plants, many unusual choices will greet shoppers there, she said.
For example, Sean Conway, a grower from Compton, Rhode Island who is coming to Philadelphia for the flower show is bringing her a shipment of unusual white and lilac colored perennial primroses that grow well in shade, she said.
“Flower and plant people are some of the nicest people,” said King. “We keep growing together.”
The Philadelphia Flower Show runs from Feb. 29 through March 8. For more information visit: www.flowershow.com or call 215-988-8899.