Winners Philadelphia Flower Show 2025 announced

Future Flowers: Dutch input at the fair

A notable entry at the fair was Future Flowers, an international collaborative project in which four designers presented their vision of the future of flowers. Among them were Dutch floral designers Mike Boerma IMF and Lily Beelen, along with Ahti Lyra from Estonia and Berit Skjøttgaard Laursen from Denmark.

Lily Beelen reflected on her participation and the innovative techniques she used, "I was able to spar with many people about the different possibilities, such as sustainability. For example, my root cloth contains an addition of wool, so it is not flammable - a requirement for the fair. A total of 30 meters of cloth was processed, already prepared at home by sewing veins with iron wire, a process that took many hours."

Personal and artisanal details also made the design unique: "The sparkling bracelets on the petals are from Oman, where I worked before Christmas. There are 100 on the design, with 20 per petal. In addition, I had crocheted violins made - 100 of them, accounting for 80 hours of work. This offered not only a nice collaboration, but also employment opportunities. Together with a friend, I made 200 glossy wool curls on aluminum wire."

The technical realization came about in part through collaboration with Mark Cook, who fabricated the substrate. "At my home, Ben had welded a prototype, which I filmed and forwarded to Mark. The end result was fantastic," Beelen said. With a total height of 3.60 meters, Future Flowers was one of the standout creations at the fair.