2019 Pennsylvania Garden Show of York Blooms This Weekend
February 28th, 2019
“Flowers on Parade” is the theme of the 2019 Pennsylvania Garden Show of York, which runs Friday through Sunday (March 1-3, 2019) in the York Expo Center’s Memorial Hall, 334 Carlisle Road, York.
Here’s Cross Creek Farm’s display from the 2018 York show.
The 2019 show features eight display gardens built by local landscapers, a marketplace with nearly 100 home and garden exhibitors/vendors, a flower show sponsored by local garden clubs, and a lineup of seminars in two different venues.
See my video from the 2018 Pa. Garden Show of York
Show tickets are $10 at the door for adults and $9 for members of the military and those over age 62. Children age 12 and under are free. Admission passes for all three days are $15.
Information on other discounts and advance-sale locations are listed on the show’s ticketing web page.
Show hours are Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Parking is free.
This year’s show also features a three-category photography contest, live insect demos by Ryan the Bug Man, and tea parties hosted by Red Brick Bakery Friday and Saturday (registration and extra fee for those).
PAGSY, as it’s called for short, is divided into two main parts.
Turn left from the main entrance to enter a Hall of Gardens that features the display gardens, seminars, and an information/education booth manned by Penn State Extension.
Turn right to go into the Garden Market of vendors, exhibitors, and a judged garden-club flower show staged by Federated Garden Club District IV.
Club members in this regional district display specimen plants and arrangements while vying for ribbons. Entries are on view throughout the show’s three days.
Eight landscapers plan to build indoor gardens this year around the “Flowers on Parade” theme, using flowers forced early into bloom in settings that feature waterfalls, patios, paver walkways, landscape lighting, and outdoor kitchens.
Penn State Master Gardeners built this display for the 2018 York show.
Display gardens are being built by Cross Creek Farm, Meadow View Gardens, Outhouse Storage, Julien’s Landscaping, Shawn’s Landscaping and Hardscaping, Songbird Ponds, Stone Valley Landscapes, and the Strathmeyer Landscape Development Corp.
In the show’s Garden Market wing, some of the booths are informational and educational (i.e. Garden Club of York, York Audubon Society, Master Gardeners from York County’s Penn State Extension office); some sell a variety of plants, products and garden accessories (i.e. Mechanicsburg’s Rosemary House, Ashcombe Farm and Greenhouses, Lewisberry Gardens), and some sell food or home products (i.e. Jill’s Jams, Stone House Pottery, Invisible Fence).
The full list of booths is posted on the show’s exhibitor web page.
Dozens of talks are planned on the main stage and in a seminar room throughout the three days.
Speakers include radio host Mark Viette (Friday evening and Saturday afternoon programs), York florist Vince Butera (Friday and Saturday arranging demos), cooking demos by Chef Tim Jutzi (Friday and Saturday), a wildlife talk by WGAL nature-show host Jack Hubley Sunday afternoon, and two Sunday talks by yours truly (on how to mix and match plants in the morning and how to grow with perennials in the early afternoon).
The full lineup of talks is posted on the show’s seminar pages.
York radio personality Larry Shaffer founded the show in 1992, turning over the reins to Kondor Media in 2002-2008, followed by Goodrich Promotions of Mechanicsburg, which ran it for two years when it was called the York Mid-Atlantic Garden Show.
Rick Jacobus, owner of the Meadow View Gardens landscape firm, took over in 2011 and has been running it since.
More information and directions are available on the Pennsylvania Garden Show of York website or by calling 717-848-2596.