Philadelphia Flower Show goes back inside for ‘23 after 2-year run in FDR park

Just two days after the Philadelphia Flower Show ended its 10-day run on Sunday at FDR Park in South Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society announced the next Flower Show will return to its original form: to be held indoors next March.

Starting in 1829, the Philadelphia Flower Show has become the oldest and largest indoor flower show in the world, but the record books will have to put an asterisk on that. The last two years it was held outdoors in a public park because of the pandemic.

Moving the show outdoors changed the scope and logistics of the Flower Show, putting PHS on a two-year learning curve to change its approach to the nearly two-century tradition.

Next year, 2023, the show will once again return to the familiar ground of the Pennsylvania Convention Center in the first week of March, when Chief of Shows Sam Lemheney said it will “create a colorful and fragrant beginning to the spring season.”

Canceling the Philadelphia Flower Show because of the COVID-19 pandemic was not an option for the Horticultural Society. It is the organization’s main fundraising event, and sustains the society’s year-round urban agricultural and beautification programs.

“Producing the Flower Show outdoors at FDR Park allowed PHS to continue this beautiful and historic event during a tumultuous time,” said Horticultural Society president Matt Rader.