Each year I go to the Philadelphia Flower Show with hope in my heart. This is not because I am pining for green, growing things and fragrant flowers. It’s because I hope that behind all the grandeur and amazement that is the Flower Show, I will find something that informs and inspires me. In all the years I’ve attended, it never occurred to me that I might find something that touched my heart.
This year I wasn’t particularly enchanted by any of the major exhibits, so I quickly made my way to the far side of the floor to look at the educational exhibits. This is where I tend to find my inspiration – in displays that have to do with sustainability, cultivating native species, raising bees, etc. They usually come from Temple University (Ambler Campus) or Williamson College of the Trades. But even these exhibits did not speak to me very strongly. I wondered, “Will I find anything truly noteworthy this year?”
And then I saw it: a most unusual display, very spare, not beautiful, and with little plant material accompanying it, created by students in the Horticulture Academy of the Abraham Lincoln High School in Philadelphia. These students had taken the show’s “Holland” theme and gone way beyond tulips and windmills.
What they created was a mock-up of the three-story annex in Amsterdam in which Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis from July 1942 to August 1944. In front of the annex were several young chestnut trees, about to come into flower.
Placards placed throughout the exhibit contained excerpts from Anne Frank’s world-famous diary, passages that focused on the healing power of nature. The exhibit sign noted that, “In [Anne’s] writings, we learn of the solace she found from her memory of plants and what little of nature she could see from the attic window.”
That window was the one place through which Anne could glimpse the outdoors that she obviously loved and longed for. She wrote in her diary, “Nearly every morning, I go to the attic to blow the stuffy air out of my lungs. From my favorite spot on the floor, I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver . . . . I firmly believe that nature can bring comfort to all who suffer.”
“Go outside,” she said, ” . . . amidst the simple beauty of nature . . . and know that as long as places like this exist, there will be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be.” (Diary excerpts from February 23, 1944)
In the midst of all the beauty and the hustle-and-bustle that is the Flower Show, I found myself thinking about personal freedom and of my own relationship to nature. Unless it is seriously storming, I find a way to spend time out of doors every day and can feel something close to resentment if something keeps me away. What would I do if deprived of the natural, living environment that I feel so bound to?
I also thought of the hate crimes that seem to be on a rise in this country. It was a sobering, poignant moment for me, as I thought of the millions of people imprisoned and murdered by the Nazis. How small a toe-hold does hate have to get to be able to eventually manifest in such a horrible way? If we truly understood our connectivity to the natural world and to each other, could such things happen?
Kudos to the Lincoln High students who conceived the idea for this exhibit and for bringing it off so simply and eloquently. Of all the Flower Show exhibits that I have seen over the years, this is the one that will stick with me.
Pam Baxter is an avid organic vegetable gardener who lives in Kimberton. Direct e-mail to pcbaxter@verizon.net, or send mail to P.O. Box 80, Kimberton, PA 19442. Join the conversation at “Chester County Roots,” a Facebook page for gardeners in the Delaware Valley. Go to Facebook, search for Chester County Roots, and “like” the page. To receive notice of updates, click or hover on “Liked” to set your preferences.
