Hawaiian Philadelphia

March 6th, 2012

Ever see a jungle of orchids?

Hawaiian dance performances in the main entry garden at the 2012 Philadelphia Flower Show.

How about a 25-foot-tall indoor waterfall?

Or maybe a 9-foot-high wall lined with 3,000 lettuce plants?

That’s just a bit of what’s on stage at this week’s Philadelphia Flower Show — one that’s been getting mixed reviews from the busloads of central Pennsylvanians I’ve been taking to see the show this week.

The theme is Hawaii. That seemed like a good opportunity to work with, and the show designers came up with some interesting opportunities.

The Pennsylvania Convention Center is crawling with big, showy, fragrant tropicals like orchids, bromeliads, pink ti plants, crotons, birds of paradise, pin-cushion proteas and red, white and pink anthuriums.

The cliff-like waterfall was creating most of the oohs and aahs. The whole backside of this rocky structure is planted with orchids, and the water is dropping into a 30-foot-wide pond surrounded by palms, tropicals and more orchids.

Next to it is an A-frame bamboo hut — about 20 feet tall — where hula dancers perform several times a day.

Overhead lights change the color of the whole display while nearly life-like videos of people and waves and volcanoes project onto the bamboo hut.

Tech fans might also like the first feature you run into inside the main entrance — an overhead video ocean.

The roof is actually an undulating video screen interspersed with rows of white orchids and hanging from the ceiling. Video of ocean waves, fish and flowing flowers is projected onto it.

It’s actually a new, patented “video-mapping” technology that allows film images to mold themselves to 3D surfaces instead of just displaying on a flat screen.

The effect is that you feel like you’re under an aquarium or the ocean itself. Some visitors thought the display was pretty cool while others said they were “underwhelmed.”

I asked one busload of local gardeners that I took to the show this week what they liked best. Surprisingly, the top answer was the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s vegetable-garden display.

The 9-foot lettuce wall is only part of that exhibit, which also includes veggie patches in various seasons, a pergola covered with cherry tomatoes ripening overhead and an ornamental edible garden that mixes vegetables, herbs and cottage-garden annuals.

I also liked the Pearl Harbor tribute garden. It features a model of the U.S.S. Arizona in a pond with stone work listing the names of ships damaged and people killed in the December 1941 attack.

Also nicely done is the “Pineapple Pa’ina’ display. It’s a floral table-set garden with 6-foot pineapple sculptures on pedestals. The pineapple form are completely covered in red carnation blooms, and a sage palms are set on top to mimic the jagged pineapple foliage.

The 9-foot wall of lettuce.

I have more pictures posted on my Photo Gallery.

And if you can possibly get down to Philly to see the show, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. More info is at www.theflowershow.com. Aloha.