Temps anxiously inched up at the 2019 PHS Philadelphia Flower Show in the Pennsylvania Convention Center this week. The theme was 60's inspired Flower Power with exhibits ranging from really groovy and psychedelic to far-out fabulous, paying tribute to the enormous impact of flowers on our lives. Botanical beauty was seen everywhere you turned in stunning displays by the world’s premier floral and landscape designers created to delight and educate. Through imaginative examples, ideas like community, healing, peace, transformation, and hope were brought to life in surprising, vibrant ways.

The PHS Philadelphia Flower Show is the nation's largest and longest-running horticultural event. Started in 1829 by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the show introduces diverse and sustainable plant varieties along with garden and design concepts.

The show is also a mecca for outstanding young talent in middle and high schools via competitive projects tying into the show's theme. Using only natural materials such as pistachio shells, acorn tops, mustard seeds, and cantaloupe skin to name a few, students created functional, wearable jewelry. We were in awe! This brooch (above) was the first place winner using a variety of hand-painted seeds, dried leaves, and palm. Judges remarked, "Excellent tribute to Jimi - worthy of the best of blues as a novice!"

Could you imagine cloves, coriander, allspice, and millet were used to create this bee necklace? 

Careful quilling with naturally dried leaf strips construct these detailed dangle earrings.

Peppers, pods, and peas, oh my!

Each nugget in this bracelet is made of dried bits of hand-painted cantaloupe rind.

All the bright colored flowers pop in pistachio shells.

Sweet pea, Norfolk pine, almonds, and wild rice combine to capture incredible texture.

Blending inspiration from innovators of the Pop Art movement era, influential techniques helped today's designers re-imagine traditional flower and garden imagery in many unexpected ways. Flower power lives on. Far-out groovy, man... xoxo-Sonya