The Garden Show Evolves
Adam Levine, who is the unofficial authority on the Philadelphia garden scene, has written elegant books about The Flower Show, and about the larger gardens in the region. At a recent luncheon meeting at the Franklin Inn, he traced the evolution of the Flower Show.
The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society was founded in 1827, and organized the first Flower Show in 1829. It went on for a century as an amateur display, very similar to the sort of local garden club display that has long been found in many towns and villages in England. The timing of such shows is dictated by the booming season of the most prominent flowers of the region, and the variety of display depends on the different dates of the local flowers in the different regions, soil and weather conditions. In the early part of the Twentieth Century, W. Atlee Burpee became the dominant force in the show. The show established a long tradition of domination by seed companies and nurseries, with elaborate displays which often took a week to set up, preceded by months or years of planning. The central difference in the nature of the show was that plants were forced into bloom, and much of its impact grew out of the appearance of displays which were seemingly entirely out of season. After World War II, Ernesta Ballard became the moving and controlling force, and driving The Show into enormous popularity in the new larger quarters at Convention Hall. Considerable revenue was generated, and used to beautify Philadelphia. The Show became the biggest, best, most popular and best funded flower show in America. Ernesta was a success.
Gradually, the most elaborate or dominant displays were put on by florists, using cut flowers. That was not necessarily Mrs. Ballard's plan, although it might have been. It is the nature of nurseries that they take up a ball of topsoil when they sell a plant, and that fact tends to dictate the location of the major nurseries. They have to be rural or exurban, but generally find that prime farm land is too expensive. Obviously, they are pressed outward from the rim of the expanding city, and may even be forced to locate at considerable distance away from the city. These realities of the business tend to diminish the local loyalties of the nurseries to the city, and of the city to the nurseries. Cut flower arrangements can resist this trend to some degree by using greenhouses, but air freight has made it possible for exhibitors to come from the Netherlands, Peru, and even Korea. The Flower Show is still held in Philadelphia, but it is much less a product of Philadelphians, especially amateur Philadelphians. When large single exhibits now can cost $100,000 apiece to organize, it is not surprising that the Philadelphians who do exhibit, are members of the upper crust.
And then there are those unions. Upper crust exhibitors can afford to pay full union wages for an electrician to plug in one electrical outlet, but they are quickly offended by the whole featherbedding experience of being forced to do it. And since a great many blue collar union members are hostile to any suggestion that these occasional employers are in any way their social superiors, they can display what is known as an attitude. Philadelphia has become famous for aggressive unions, and the Convention Center is particularly notorious for unions with political clout. Somehow, the politicians in charge of this unfortunate passive-aggressive scene have got to get control of it, and be seen to get control of it. After all, these snooty exhibitors are occasionally in a position to move whole factories out to the suburbs, to the general injury of the city. The paradox of the whole thing is that 70% of these union members live in the suburbs themselves. The Flower Show cannot run without the enthusiastic help of 3500 volunteers. The judging is done by 175 volunteer judges from all over America, coming to Philadelphia at their own expense.
The Flower Show has had memorable moments. There was a time when the Shipley School consistently won most of the prizes. There was a famous episode when the Widener Estate of Linwood had a world-famous Acacia display. When it was broken up, there was a famous uproar when it was given to Washington DC, instead of staying right here where it belonged. Now, the gossip is about exhibitors from the Ukraine, or from Japan, making little laughable mistakes about local geography with its one-way streets.
The Show goes on, and thrives. But just what its future is going to be is unclear.
(1410)
100 N. 20th Street Philadelphia, PA 19103  |
|---|
Google Earth |
