Flower Show - Philadelphia 2009

My son's girlfriend gave us tickets to the Philadelphia Flower Show as a Christmas gift. She had done this last year and we liked it so much that I was secretly hoping that she would do it again - and she did.

It's not a bad drive for us and we kind of play it by ear anyway, waiting to commit to a certain day by looking at the projected weather forecast about a week ahead. I had nothing to worry about this year as this was my last week at home on medical leave. In fact, it was good to get out and walk around, although it was tiring, to see how much I could push myself. I have to admit that it is a lot of walking, but there are areas to sit down and I did take advantage of them.

If you get there in the morning when it first opens (10 a.m.) there is a crowd and it is not easy to get to close to all of the exhibits right away. Everyone wants to take pictures and you either have to wait or snap quickly. I try to take at least two pictures of everything I want a picture of because usually someone either walks in front of you, bumps into you, or as it happened this time, sticks there camera right in front of yours. (Oh yes it did happen!)

This year the theme was Bella Italia - and featured exhibits relevant to all the regions of Italy. I don't know that we really paid attention to that but we did visit every one.

I'm going to post some pictures each day for the next week so you can enjoy it little by little (and also because I took so darn many of them).

Today I will focus on five of the larger arrangements that we came across. They truly are breathtaking and I hope you enjoy them. When you look at the one with the wall behind it, look up and see if you can find the opera singer. There was an operatic performance going on between a man and a woman and a piano on top of that particular exhibit.