Maybe not everyone's choice, but I loved this year's PHS Flower Show … celebrating the 100th anniversary of America's National Park System. Entering through Big Timber Lodge, complete with realistic natural waterfall, you can then spread out and visit any number of parks across the USA … Grand Teton, the Delaware Water Gap, Saguaro, Yellowstone, Valley Forge, Olympic, you name it.
Cape Cod National Seashore, anyone? This landscape by Mark Cook Landscape & Contracting of Doylestown, PA, certainly looks like the real thing. There are landscapes just like this one all over Cape Cod, with seaside grasses and simple fencing to keep the dunes in place.
But for a realistic park journey, visit the Yellowstone exhibit by Stoney Bank Nurseries of Glen Mills, PA. It illustrates a landscape that's naturally re-occurring after a wildfire, a scene many of us are never likely to see.
There are not so many flowers this year, but I loved the naturalistic plantings and combinations, what you really might see on a springtime hike in your local park or woodland. Take one of the three "trails" that focus on the history and culture of the National Park Service; watch presentations by park rangers from around the country; watch videos of some of our most famous parks. And make sure to write your congressmen and senators and ask for money for the Park Service, surely one of our great national treasures.
The show runs through March 13th.
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