Every year the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society conducts themed events showcasing innovative ideas from the modern world. The PHS Philadelphia Flower Show is the nation’s largest and longest-running horticultural event featuring stunning displays by the world’s premier floral and landscape designers.

I visited the 2017 Philadelphia Flower Show themed “Holland: Flowering the World” with a display of 30,000 flowers and exhibits from a massive Dutch sustainability project. The Netherlands, also referred to as Holland, is world renowned for flowers, greenhouse vegetables, windmills and Gouda. No other country is as well known for its floral industry as the Netherlands, which fills the world with color.

The interior of the Philadelphia Convention Center had been transformed into lush tulip gardens and streets and alleys of Amsterdam with its canals and bikes and other facets of Holland’s culture. Visitors thronged the event which celebrated the beauty and ingenuity of Dutch culture, from vivid flower fields to innovative eco-design.

At the entrance, visitors had to pass under a stunning lit overhead floral canopy made with about 6,000 blooms and a tiled canal archway with parked bicycles and hanging baskets bursting with seasonal blooms that set the tone for the Dutch theme.

There were imaginative gardens and stunning landscapes by architects and landscapers featuring designs inspired by Dutch innovation to preserve and protect their environment. Here is a traditional garden design named “Contrasting Cohesion”. Framed by tree hedges along with boxwood and brightened with perennials, the design embraces modern advances with low maintenance plantings allowing seeds to intermingle and thrive creating a balance of control and wilderness of nature.

Inspired by Dutch painter Piet Mondrian’s 1921 painting “Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Grey and Blue”, this urban garden setting incorporates abstract lines and blocks of color combined with modern materials and construction techniques to create a harmonious landscape.

Re-connection is an outdoor space ideal for plants animals and people that demonstrates the advantages of nature and sustainable materials combined with already present factors such as rainwater are interwoven with human functioning and well-being.

There are flowering plants from every letter of the English alphabet in the Alphabet in Bloom gardens.

A chocolate chip cookie? No, look closely. These are live bees abuzz with activity, an exhibit from inside the Dutch Ecodome, the Dutch vision of an innovative “green” space that promotes sustainable practices and technologies that inspire a healthy lifestyle. Agricultural production in Holland takes place in greenhouses that generate more energy than they consume, reducing carbon dioxide emissions and promote labor efficiency by employing robots to pick vegetables and transport plant pots. Buildings in large cities are equipped with multi-layer LED systems to grow fresh produce using a small surface area. Growers use natural resources (like ladybugs and mites) and biological agents to combat infestations of pests to avoid the use of pesticides. The perfect flower: that’s the goal for Dutch growers.

Here is a cool, eco-friendly showcase of books created in a wall of plants inside a house.

The blue tulip named Philly Belle is a brand-new species of tulip named for the City of Brotherly Love. The number one exporter of flowers in the world, the Dutch produce over four billion tulip bulbs every year.

Delftware, also known as Delft pottery is a blue and white tin-glazed pottery. Delft was used as a substitute for porcelain, an expensive import from China during the 16th century. The brand name “Delft Blaw” is hand-painted onto collectibles to certify authenticity. Common motifs of Delftware include Dutch life, religious icons, botanicals, windmills, fishing boats, landscapes, seascapes, and hunting scenes.

Amsterdam is the bicycle capital of the world and home to more bikes than people. A Dutch person cycles on average 1.8 miles per day (657 miles per year). About 21,748 miles of bike paths. Excellent, cycling-friendly infrastructure, which includes dense networks of bike paths, bike tracks, bike stations and protected intersections.

This exhibit commemorates the “White Bicycle Plan” that symbolizes simplicity and healthy living. Initiated by Luud Schimmelpenninck in the 1960s the white bike plan was launched to counter the rise of pollution and cars. The concept was to take old bicycles, paint them white, leave it anywhere in the city, people can use it and put it back anywhere in the city. Nowadays, hundreds of cities have bike-sharing systems, and the phenomenon is still growing.

The bicycle culture, canals, and bridges of the Netherlands inspire this intimate garden space. Old stone garden structures have been transformed into whimsical modern art pieces peppered with colorful trees, perennials and tulips.

Amsterdam is the most famous city that was built around canals. Canals were initially built in the 17th century, during the Dutch Golden Age, for transport, defense and water removal. The city has over 62 miles of semicircular canals, forming concentric rings around the city.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Garden Railway Society was founded in 1990 as a group of large-scale model railroad enthusiasts in the Delaware Valley to promote model railroad activities. A garden railway is a model railway system set up outdoors, utilizing scale model trains and accessories, in combination with live garden plants. The club’s Flower Show display depicts urban and rural life in Holland with trains, a trolley, and canals running past canal houses, a park, a brewery and hotel. A farmhouse, windmills, and a flower field and barn. The display represents what can be done in a small area of your backyard.

Exhibits vie for the front entrance of houses. Inspired by the Dutch, who are innovators and inventors of many ideas that have been taken up by the rest of the world.

Some interesting facts about the Dutch:

• Innovative Dutch farmers developed orange carrots in the 17th century and introduced them to the world, Previously, carrots ranged in color from pale yellow to purple.
• One of the healthiest diets in the world – ranked first for having the most plentiful, nutritious, healthy and affordable foods.
• Most physically active: 52% of the population participate in some form of sports on a weekly basis.
• The digital storage formats of CD, DVD and Blu-Ray were invented in the Netherlands.
• The Dutch prefer using raincoats instead of umbrellas during the wet seasons, especially when the rain comes with wind. It is precarious to hold an umbrella and cycle at the same time.

Breathtaking floral arrangement displays captivated the imagination of visitors.

Intricately crafted Pressed Flower Wall Arts depicting scenes from Amsterdam.

Inspired by Dutch Eco Design, setting the trends for innovative design, recycling economy, fair trade, ground-breaking alternative materials, and unconventional ideas.

Scenes from Dutch life have been recreated in these exhibits.

The Philadelphia Flower Show Marketplace features more than 180 vendors selling everything from garden furniture and hand-crafted jewelry to fresh cut flowers, garden supplies and so much more.

The 2019 PHS Philadelphia Flower Show, themed “Flower Power,” will pay tribute to the enormous impact of flowers on our lives, from March 2 to 10, 2019, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.