Horticulture

A Nice Day

Yeah, Another Blogger158 Comments

Twelve days ago, after paying our bill at Barbuzzo, a restaurant in downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, my wife and I exited the establishment and then walked a few blocks to Jefferson Station. There, we caught a train that returned us to our suburban town. Halfway between Barbuzzo and the station I said to Sandy, “This was a nice day.” I wasn’t the least bit surprised when she said she had been thinking the same thing.

Yup, our worries and woes were in hiding during the five and a half hours we spent in Philadelphia that Thursday, first at The Philadelphia Flower Show and then at Barbuzzo. I don’t know, maybe I’d been sprinkled with a heavy dose of magic dust before leaving home in the early afternoon, because I was cool, calm and collected in Philly, as relaxed as when I’m drifting off to sleep. Even the substantial crowd at the flower show didn’t bother me in the least. “Hell,” I said to myself, “everyone here has just as much right as I do to get up close and personal with the exhibits.” What? I, whose nerves often are easily jangled, actually felt that way? I did. I sure would love to be in such an at-ease frame of mind far more than I normally am. Will the transformation occur before my time expires on Planet Earth? Well, “miracles” are known to happen. But I’m not holding my breath.

I’ve been living in or near Philadelphia since the mid-1970s, but for decades never paid any attention to The Philadelphia Flower Show, a famed annual event. In 2016, though, almost on a whim, Sandy and I decided to go. I liked the experience, and now have attended five times. This year’s production, which ran for nine days, was as sweet as summer fruit, despite being held in a non-descript hall large enough to accommodate a number of jumbo jets.

Each year’s flower show has a theme, 2024’s being United By Flowers. I’m all for unity and, like just about everyone, am pro-flowers. So, I couldn’t go wrong. Excellent flowers were almost everywhere in the exhibits area. Ditto for other forms of flora. Sandy and I spent two and a half hours admiring the many installations, doubling back at times to re-examine the five or six that had particularly wowed us. We spent an additional 30 minutes wandering around the vendors section, where more products than you could shake a stick at — and not just horticultural items — were for sale.

Besides the beauty and creativity on display, was there anything else about the show I liked? Affirmative. I admired the diversity of people in attendance. They ranged in age from those that hadn’t yet reached their first birthday to old f*ckers such as me. A wide range of races and cultures were on the scene. And numerous folks with mobility issues didn’t let the enormity of the hall keep them away. Wheelchairs, motorized scooters and canes abounded.

Around 5:00 PM, Sandy and I heard dinner’s call. So, we bade farewell to the flower show and made our way to 13th Street. Philadelphia’s restaurant scene is amazingly strong, and a four-block-long section of 13th Street is one of the prime destinations for restaurant goers. We couldn’t get into Darling Jack’s Tavern, our first choice. But 50 feet away was Barbuzzo, an Italian eatery we’d passed many times but had never frequented. In we went. The place was mobbed, dimly lit and looked cozy. Could they accommodate us? Sure, but only at the chef’s counter, where two stools apparently had been waiting to greet our rear ends.

Happy with our perches, we watched meals being cooked five feet away from us, in pans sitting atop the burners of a stove as solid as an army tank. The burners’ flames, and those from the nearby wood-fueled pizza oven, kept us good and warm. I kept glancing at the oven, whose fury fascinated me. Its portrait was the only photo I took in the restaurant.

We kept things simple at Barbuzzo, whose menu ranges wide, opting for a salad, a Margherita pizza, beer and wine. Everything was delicious. And, before we knew it, it was time to head home.

At 8:06 PM, we arrived at Jefferson Station, giving us very little time to catch the 8:10 train. If we missed it, we would have had to wait an hour for the next one. F*ck that! But we didn’t miss it. Moving quickly through the waiting area and down the stairs, we reached the train platform just as the 8:10 was pulling in. Nice.

Flora Galore!

Yeah, Another Blogger155 Comments

I’m fairly certain I’ve mentioned in at least one or two earlier stories that I ain’t an ace when it comes to gardening. I garden, but only in a utilitarian sense. That is, I mow the lawn surrounding my house as needed. I gather up shitloads of fallen leaves each autumn and winter and put them out for collection. I pull out weeds. I prune shrubs and trees as best I can to keep them from becoming crazily overgrown. And . . . well, that’s about it.

In other words, I don’t plant or transplant. I don’t fertilize or otherwise nurture. I don’t attempt to expand or reconfigure the placements of flora on my grounds. Thus, the grounds look more or less as they did in 2005, the year my wife Sandy (who is not a gardener at all) and I bought our house, except that several shrubs and one tree have bitten the dust since then, as have numerous flowers. Still, things look okay overall. To my eye, anyway. A facelift definitely wouldn’t hurt though, or a few changes simply for change’s sake.

So, what’s holding me back from engaging in meaningful gardening? Indifference, for one thing. And a bigger factor: It intimidates me. Meaning, I’m afraid I’d mess things up badly were I to thrust my hands into the soil. Yes, where gardening is concerned, I’m a f*cking wuss.

However, I’m happy to report that both Sandy and I are keen appreciators of other people’s efforts to create and maintain attractively designed grounds. Who isn’t? Those endeavors, after all, are artistic enterprises and expressions. It almost goes without saying, then, that we had a fine time earlier this month at the annual Philadelphia Flower Show, a famous event organized by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. The show began quietly in 1829 and has, over time, become a big deal. Out of ignorance, I used to thumb my nose at the Flower Show. I wised up in 2016, the first year I attended. Our visit this month was my fourth and Sandy’s fifth.

We arrived at the show, held in Philadelphia’s cavernous convention center, on the third day of its nine-day run. The show’s theme, which changes each year, was The Garden Electric. As that name implies, bold lighting was woven into many of the sights. I think that the show organizers also opted for the word electric in order to get folks psyched for the upcoming spring season’s unfoldings and blossomings.

The premises were plenty crowded. I was happy to see that mobility issues didn’t keep some people away, as canes, walkers, wheelchairs and motorized scooters abounded. Babies in strollers and carriages were on the scene too. All of which made for a welcoming environment, though the size of the crowd meant that long lines awaited Sandy and me at some of the special exhibits.

The waits were worth it, as the special exhibits, for me, were what the event was all about. (I had no interest in the sections of the floor where potted plants, sitting on tables, had been judged and awarded ribbons, or the enormous section where plants, horticultural tools and tons of other products were for sale.)

Tulips, daffodils, hyacinth
Dense vegetation near the winding path

Many of the special exhibits were either gardens or less-structured landscapes, all of their flora anchored in soil. It was easy to forget that these displays were mounted on a concrete floor. I immediately took a liking to the swath of lawn blessed by hundreds of tulips, daffodils and hyacinth, whose punchy colors rocked. And I was an even bigger fan of the mini-woods, which was dense with vegetation and alive with fragrances. I ambled along its winding path, my blood pressure dropping with every step. Soothing, man, soothing.

Part of the exhibit of wispy, tendrilled sculptures

Other special exhibits left the world of reality pretty much behind, such as the display of wispy, tendrilled sculptures, behind glass and bathed in black light. That exhibit, in fact, pleased me more than anything I saw during the three and a half hours Sandy and I spent at the show. It was very cool. Yes, there is no doubt I’ve become a believer in the Philadelphia Flower Show. If all goes as planned, Sandy and I will return for the 2024 edition.

I’m going to conclude the proceedings with a nod to a blog I enjoy: Paddy Tobin, An Irish Gardener (click here to view it). Unlike me, Paddy and his wife are masterful gardeners. The grounds of their home look great, due to their hard work and artistic vision. A stroll through Paddy’s blog will show you what I mean. Enjoy!

A Coronavirus And Philadelphia Flower Show Story

Yeah, Another Blogger117 Comments

These are tough times. I’ll mention but three of many calamitous situations: War, raging in Syria and Yemen, has displaced millions of people from their homes and homelands. Ocean levels are on the rise as a result of melting Arctic and Antarctic glaciers and ice shelves. And coronavirus, emerging like a demon from a dark, dark corner, is throwing mankind into a tailspin. The virus is the story, so far anyway, of 2020.

Most of us might be fortunate and not contract coronavirus. But how can we not pay attention to it and worry about it? We can’t. As I began to compose this essay on March 11, I relived the conversations I’d had with the ten relatives and friends that I’d spent time with in the six days before that date. Coronavirus was, and remains, heavy on their minds. And on mine too. How far will this renegade spread? Just how deadly might it become? Will an effective vaccine or other treatment be developed, and if so, when? Will coronavirus mutate into other strains that will raise the human condition’s havoc level to even higher heights?

Before March 11, the virus hadn’t infiltrated my region too much (I live near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA), or so it was thought. How quickly things have changed since then, though. As of this article’s publication date (March 16), there are many confirmed cases of coronavirus in Pennsylvania. And, as we all know, numerous national and local governments, worldwide, have increased restrictions on travel, and have ordered schools and certain businesses and other organizations to close until further notice (this is true for my region). Much of the same has occurred via voluntary restrictions and closures too.

As a result, over the last few days my wife Sandy and I have made big adjustments in regard to what we do and don’t do. So, it’s sobering to think that until recently pretty much everyone around here was living life fairly normally — the population was aware of the virus, but was only starting to act cautiously. Sandy and I certainly weren’t exercising a whole lot of caution when, on March 6, we boarded a train in our suburban town and rode it into the heart of central Philadelphia. A short walk away was the Pennsylvania Convention Center, a huge-as-hell structure that for nine days this month was home to the Philadelphia Flower Show. We bought tickets for the show at one of the Center’s box offices and entered the exhibition hall.

The Philadelphia Flower Show is an annual, world-famous event. It began modestly in 1829 as a project of the Philadelphia Horticultural Society and has become, by far, PHS’s most noted endeavor. Millions of people have taken it in over the years. Now, I’ve lived in or near Philadelphia since the mid-1970s and have been aware of the Flower Show all of that time. But I didn’t give a shit about it, and never went. Until a few years ago, that is. “What the hell, let’s go to the Flower Show,” I said to Sandy in 2016, and we did. We liked it. We returned in 2018, took 2019 off, and decided two weeks ago not to extend that non-attendance streak to two consecutive years.

One of the reasons that I didn’t give a shit about the Flower Show is that I wasn’t keen on looking at exhibit after exhibit of flowers. If I had investigated what the show really is about, though, I’d have discovered that it features all sorts of flora, not just flowers, and often replicates natural and man-made landscapes and waterscapes too. Hell, I’m down with all of that, so I should have given the Flower Show a shot way before I eventually did. I don’t live and learn all that often, but in this case it happened.

Almost needless to say, I found the 2020 version of the show to be absolutely a-ok. As did Sandy. Each year the Flower Show is centered around a theme, and this year’s was Riviera Holiday. Meaning, displays inspired by Mediterranean life in Spain, France, Monaco and Italy took up much of the hall (horticultural-competition areas and booths selling this, that and the other thing grabbed the rest of the floor space).

The themed section, filled with movie-set-like constructions, was where I spent most of my time. The gardens, some formal, some not, were lovely. As was a villa, and a modest cottage beside which a motor scooter was stationed, and the whimsical, color-drenched representations of Italian fishermen’s houses.

I dug the recreation of the Princess Grace Rose Garden. The original garden is in Monaco, the itsy-bitsy nation where, in 1956, the actress Grace Kelly became a princess by marrying Monaco’s Prince Rainier. A mannequin, clothed in a copy of Kelly’s wedding gown, stood in the garden. Grace, I’m sure, would have approved of the tribute.

Yes, the Flower Show had atmosphere. It brought me back to 1977, the only time I was on the Mediterranean coast. I spent six weeks in Europe in the spring of that year, travelling solo, before returning to a job in Philadelphia that I foolishly had quit two years before. One of those weeks was passed in southern France and in Monaco. A very good week it was. And the Flower Show gave me the urge to return, this time with Sandy. But the coronavirus situation will have to be under control before we step onto a plane. And who knows when that will be?

The crowds at the Flower Show on the day we attended were noticeably smaller than those we encountered in 2016 and 2018. One of our friends, a Flower Show aficionado, went twice this year. She told Sandy that attendance was less than usual on the days she visited too. Part of the shrinkage was due I’m sure to the hefty ticket price increases that PHS instituted in 2020. But the main factor, I’m also sure, was the threat of coronavirus posed by being in crowds.

That threat was understood on March 6 in my area, but nowhere near as well as it is understood today. That’s why the Philadelphia Flower Show was lucky, in a sense, that it was able to complete its run (last week, government mandates in Philadelphia and throughout Pennsylvania banned large events such as the Flower Show.) On the other hand, it’s more than possible that some amount of virus transmission took place at the show. And that truly sucks.

Coronavirus ain’t playing. It already has killed thousands. And its course is unpredictable. Hang on tight as best you can, girls and boys.

(Please don’t be shy about adding your comments. And if you’re in the mood for sharing this article, go for it! I thank you.)

(The photos, duh, are from the 2020 Philadelphia Flower Show. If you click on any photo, a larger image will open.)

He Whose Thumbs Are Anything But Green Visits The Philadelphia Flower Show

Yeah, Another Blogger71 Comments

I’ve a close friend who oohs and aahs and maybe even finds her reason for being when she goes to the Philadelphia Flower Show, a massive and annual event that attracts numerous gardeners and other assorted nature lovers. Yeah, the Flower Show means a lot to her. She attends every year with her sisters, excitedly looking at exhibits both grand and small and sniffing out ideas that might be applicable to her garden. Basically, she loves to get her horticultural groove on. She was there with her female siblings two Mondays ago, devoting five hours of her life to the enterprise. And, I’m sure, had a remarkable time.

As for me, on the other hand, I never entertained the idea of going to the PFS until two years ago. It’s not that I don’t like to look at flowers and other plants  — I do! — but I guess the notion of seeing them indoors in artificial settings never rang my bell sufficiently. What’s more, I’m not in the market for floral or other gardening hints that undoubtedly would aid the small patch of land upon which my suburban abode sits. Hell, the subject just doesn’t interest me. And, I’m not embarrassed to admit, my thumbs are so far from being green, flowers and shrubs sprint down the block faster than Usain Bolt when they see me coming.

But in 2016, after having dwelled in or near Philadelphia, my adopted city, for about 40 years, I had a change of heart. Why not go, indeed? The Philadelphia Flower Show is enormously popular (200,000 or more bodies take it in each year) and known around the world. The time had come to check it out. Which my wife Sandy and I did. We had a pretty good time.

One thing I learned at the show in 2016 is that flowers hardly are the only focus. Maybe it once was strictly a floral endeavor, but those days are in the far away past. Now pretty much all of nature is fair game. In the interests of accuracy it wouldn’t be a bad idea, I’d therefore say, if the Philadelphia Horticultural Society, which has been putting on the extravaganza since 1829,  changed the event’s name. How about Flowers N More R Us? No? Well, I’ll give it some more thought.

Anyway, for many years now the Flower Show has had a theme, a different one each go-round, to which about a third of the floor space is devoted. The displays within the themed section are the event’s biggest draw. The rest of the square footage is taken up by that to which the theme does not apply: small-to-medium scale floral and other plant displays, flora competitions, horticultural product vendors, and by refreshment stands. Two years ago the exhibits in the themed section had nothing to do with cultivated flowers at all, or with any other examples of horticulture for that matter. That’s because the topic at hand was the USA’s national parks, which, duh, are wilderness or near-wilderness regions.

This year, though, cultivated flora was a part of the story in the themed district, which was dubbed “Wonders Of Water.” Still, the untamed substantially ruled, as a recreation of a tropical rainforest — rainforests, duh, being environments in which human hands play little part (except when man is leveling them, which is what our blighted species loves to do) — held 2018’s center stage position.

I’m not complaining, by the way. It’s all to the good that the Philadelphia Horticultural Society has expansive viewpoints that encompass much of nature, not just the human-tailored parts of the picture.

Admirably, I’ve now attended the Flower Show twice. Because on March 6 of the present year, the fourth day of the show’s nine-day run, Sandy and I entered the Pennsylvania Convention Center, which is in downtown Philly and only inches away from the city’s Chinatown neighborhood. The Flower Show took up a whole lot of the enormous structure’s acreage. I’ll say this about the quarters in which the PFS was staged: If you’ve seen one airplane hangar, you’ve seen ’em all! If I owned a hat I’d tip it to the Horticultural Society for having given it all they’ve got to transform an antiseptic mega-space into something more than decently attractive.

Getting back to that rainforest, it was a beautiful, sprawling installation. Colorful, fragrant and dense, complete with misty rains dropping from on-high in one (or was it two?) spots, and a not-bad facsimile of a waterfall, it dominated the Wonders Of Water area in nothing but good ways. Truckloads of show-attendees clogged the pathways that wound within and around the rainforest. The Flower Show clearly is not the place to go for anyone seeking to get away from it all. Not that the crowds were unpleasant. They weren’t. Everyone seemed relaxed and respectful of their fellow tribe members, whose numbers included high quantities of young children and individuals who needed canes, walkers or wheelchairs to get around.

Of the sizeable number of displays other than the rainforest in the Wonders Of Water zone, three grabbed me more than the rest. How cool was the Spring Thaw exhibit, its pretty flowers abloom in a meadow being fed by melting waters from mountain peaks. And how aridly spot-on was the desert mock-up in which cacti and other life forms thrived in their own stark way, making do with very little of the wet stuff.

Plenty of water (in an irrigation ditch), however, was present in the tulips field display. Those flowers jolted the eye in washes of yellow, purple, red and other members of the spectrum. I’m a sucker for splashy swaths of color, so I spent quite a lot of time letting them raise my spirits. There, more than anywhere in Wonders Of Water, the name Philadelphia Flower Show truly applied.

Sandy and I passed many minutes together in the themed section. Then we separated for a while, she investigating the sections of the show outside the Wonders Of Water boundaries. I however stayed within those boundaries. The creations there satisfied me very well, and I felt little desire to stray.

Before we knew it, two hours had passed. Sandy by then had rejoined me and we decided to call it a day. Our visit to the Philadelphia Flower Show had been a good one.

But that’s not the end of the story. I’ve given the visit some thought in the process of composing that which you now are reading. And I’ve come to realize that what the show had to offer me, beyond its immediate delights, was the impetus to get out into, and explore, nature. I imagine that such is one of the Philadelphia Horticultural Society’s main aims in mounting the exhibition each year.

I have plans to head west to New Mexico in 2018, where my brother and sister-in-law recently moved. There I’ll mosey around the deserts, remembering, of course, to lather on sunscreen beforehand, as all good little boys and girls should do. And, closer to home, in fact only seven or so miles away, I’ll hike the trails inside Pennypack Park, a nine-mile long forest, bordered by residential streets, that runs through Philadelphia’s northeast section. Call me crazy, but I plan to try and hike the park’s entire length in one session. The last time I walked that far in one day was when I was in my 30s. I’ve recently tiptoed into my 70s, so who knows if nine miles is within my engine’s capabilities. If I make it all the way, and even if I don’t, you can bet your sweet bippy that I’ll be writing about the expedition on this blog’s pages.

Thanks, Philadelphia Flower Show. I enjoyed you quite a lot this year. If I remain above ground for a good while longer, then I’ll see you again.

(Don’t be shy about adding your comments or about sharing this article on social media or via email. Gracias.)

(All photos are from March 6, 2018. If you click on any photo, a larger image will open in a separate window)