Kristine Kratt (right) and Bill Schaffer (left), co-owners of Schaffer Designs work on their installation at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s 2023 Philadelphia Flower Show.
Floral designers showed off their craft, the joy they experience from their work, and wowed the audience with their innovative use of colors, shapes, textures and fragrances in their installations that were part of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s 2023 Philadelphia Flower Show.
The show, March 4 to 12, returned to the Pennsylvania Convention Center after two years of being held outdoors because of the pandemic. The theme, “The Garden Electric,” allowed landscapers and floral designers from all over the world to showcase their craft during the nation’s largest and longest-running horticulture event.
“Eye Candy”
For Bill Schaffer and Kristine Kratt, co-owners of Schaffer Designs, which won The Philadelphia Flower Show Silver Trophy, the SAF Flower Show Award, and the PHS Gold Medal, innovation culminated in an installation called “Eye Candy,” which was designed to give attendees a rush reminiscent of being a kid in a candy store, while evoking the emotional power of flowers.
“Florists talk about flowers like candy — ‘That’s so yummy!’, ‘That is so delish!’, ‘That’s so gorgeous I could just eat it!’” Schaffer says. “Florists say it all the time, so we thought, why not literally express it in flowers? We created a decadent environment in which guests wandered through an immersive experience of light and color and found themselves surrounded by some of their favorite confectionary delights with a floral twist.”
Attendees were indeed delighted by the candy-colored blooms on display, with one young attendee experiencing the excitement and wonder Schaffer and Kratt had hoped to inspire.
“A couple of days after the opening of the show, I was coming down from a ladder after double-checking all of our lighting connections, and there was a little girl looking up at me who said, ‘This is just like Candy Land! I’m having so much fun,’” Schaffer recalls. “That is why we do what we do.”
Schaffer Designs’ “Eye Candy” exhibit was designed to make attendees feel like a kid in a candy store.
Blossoming Inclusion
When the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society invited Black Girl Florists to participate in the flower show, founder and florist Valerie Crisostomo jumped at the opportunity to tell the story of black floral professionals. Black Girl Florists was established in the summer of 2020 during the height of the racial tension. Despite the turmoil, Crisostomo saw an opportunity to create something as joyful as her floral designs by showcasing the work of black florists and promoting their businesses. What started as a list of black-owned florists that was circulated in her community grew to an organization with hundreds of professionals in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom.
Black Girl Florists founder Valerie Crisostomo with the organization’s “United Through Our Pour” exhibit.
The organization’s installation, “United Through Our Pour,” featured trees and barrels of different sizes with specific colors of flowers flowing from each, and meeting in the center. The barrels corresponded to the 12 designers’ time in the industry —the tallest (six feet) signifying floral veterans down to the shortest (two feet) representing young newcomers.
“Each barrel had a specific pour color — purple, magenta, or red — illustrating what we give and what we share based on our experience in the floral industry,” Crisostomo says. “On the left side of our installation, those barrels only have the three colors, but once you get to the tree, you start to see other colors pop up — blue, yellow, orange — and you see all the colors working together, signifying that when we share our gifts, we don’t compete, we don’t gatekeep, then we’re able to actually grow and do something beautiful.”
The group won the PHS Gardening for the Greater Good Award and a silver medal.
“It was beautifully overwhelming and especially welcoming,” Crisostomo says. “It was our first flower show, and I will say that the reception was outstanding. We were one of the only all-black teams present, so we received a really, really great welcome to be there for our first time. People loved our installation, and that it represented exactly what our organization stands for, which is collaboration, community, and championship.”
A Flowering Tribute
Sherry Grimes-Jenkins of EMY Custom Flowers LLC wanted to use her installation as an opportunity to inspire young people, just as she had been inspired to pursue a floral career as a child. Raised in Barbados, Grimes-Jenkins created a tribute to her grandmother, Mama, who sparked her interest in flowers.
“She was the person who first introduced me to gardening, and her favorite hat happened to be her gardening hat. After migrating to the United States as a teenager, I held onto those memories of gardening with my grandmother in Barbados as I opened EMY Custom Flowers and studied floral design at the New York Botanical Garden,” Grimes-Jenkins says. “This piece captures the memories of an immigrant child leaving home, the beautiful island of Barbados, and the woman who ignited my love for flowers.”
The installation, “Mama’s Hat,” which won a bronze medal, featured an array of flowers such as carnations, roses, anthurium lilies, anemones, gerberas, and hydrangeas, as well as plants such as snake plants, succulents, and aloe vera, which were assembled to resemble her beloved grandmother’s gardening hat. Grimes-Jenkins was pleased with the response from attendees, and she hopes her design inspired others to pursue floral design.
Sherry Grimes-Jenkins of EMY Custom Flowers, with her installation, “Mama’s Hat,” inspired by the gardening hat her grandmother wore.
“I wanted to encourage youth to get involved with floral design and gardening through my design,” says Grimes-Jenkins. “I really wanted this design to speak to the younger audience coming to see the show and inspire them to join the flower industry.”
To see which other florists were awarded honors, click here.
Kenya McCullum is a contributing writer for the Society of American Florists.