I am very pleased to be reporting in from the Philadelphia Flower Show today and bring you a review of the popular Miniature Setting exhibit. I’m pretty sure it was the busiest exhibit at the show with a constant line-up of people shuffling through to see in the dozen window boxes. Up until now, I’ve only seen pictures of it and didn’t realize how much fun they had with the idea. In this post and in the next, I hope to share some of the things that surprised and delighted me.

I also had the opportunity to meet the Vice-Chair, Louise Krasneiwicz and Chair of the exhibit, Ron Hess and his wife, Katy. What. A. Treat. Louise was gracious host and, not only gave me the inside scoop/tour on the Miniature Settings exhibit, she helped with me with the logistics of my talk, turned into my rhodie and my photographer. (She is SO hired!) Afterwards, we unconsciously sought out every miniature garden and plant in the show – honestly, we had no agenda, we just did –  Lol! What fun surprise to meet a kindred spirit!

A Little About the Philly Flower Show

If you’ve never been, the Philadelphia Flower Show is the oldest and biggest flower show in the nation, if not the world. Founded in 1827 by America’s first horticultural society, the Philadelphia Horticultural Society, the show is now 33 acres big with the garden exhibit space taking up a good 10 acres of that, in the Pennsylvania Convention Center in downtown Philly.

It’s a bit different than our Northwest Flower and Garden Show, with more attention given to individual gardeners and artists to participate and show off their growing skills and creativity. At the NWFGS, it is all professionals exhibiting – but, hey, the PHS has had a little, teeny bit of a head start in developing their program, eh?

Enough of the talk, lets get to the photos! I’m not going into a lot of detail right now because there is so much to say and, well, you know me! Next week, I’ll walk through my favorites and we can really have a good look and discussion about the plants too.

Oh, and all the plants are real – which was a surprise to me. When I first looked into this show years ago, I remember a lot of the plants being artificial, but the rules have always been, you must have at least eight rooted plants and the display scale is 1 inch = 1 foot. Click to enlarge the photo.

It’s The Same, But Different

Note that this type of miniature gardening is different than what we normally do here at The Mini Garden Guru blog and Two Green Thumbs Miniature Garden Center. Our miniature gardens can last for years, the plants in this display are meant to last for days and some plants are switched out during the show because they reach for the light too quickly, or crash under the stress. It’s a different set of “problems” for the miniature gardener to solve. (We love problems, they bring opportunity for creative invention!)

After the book tour when things settle down I want to go more in-depth about how our fellow MGs in Philadelphia grow and nurture their plants for this 8-day show. In the meantime, hop on over to Louise’s blog, aka Dr. K, Flower Show Miniature Setttings, The Dirt on Putting one Together… And stay tuned next week: we’ll go more in-depth about our favorite Miniature Settings display.

So, every display got a 1st, 2nd, 3rd place or Honorable Mention ribbon, but which one do you think won Best in Show? Leave it in the comments below and please don’t spoil it for the others if you know.

Inspired to make your own living miniature garden? See what’s up in the store this week. Our miniature garden plant and accessory inventory fluctuates from week to week. Click-in here.