CBS3 SummerFest: Philadelphia Flower Show Features More Women-Led Design Firms Than Ever Before
PHILADELPIHIA (CBS) -- It's SummerFest Friday on CBS3. If you're looking to get outside this weekend, the Philadelphia Flower Show will be in full bloom.
The show is once again being held outdoors at FDR Park.
This year's exhibits feature more women-led design firms than ever before in the show's history.
Walking through the entrance of the Philadelphia Flower Show is like entering a bustling city of color and greenery as the teams of exhibitors put the final touches in place.
For all of the competitors at the flower show, Wambui Ippolito is the lady to beat. She won last year's show and did it in her first year participating, which is amazing
"I sure did with my team," Ippolito said.
Ippolito is a landscape designer based in the New York City Tri-state area.
Janelle Burrell: These flowers, they're dainty, they're pretty. What was your thought behind them?
Ippolito: I wanted a very girly garden.
Ippolito's exhibit is called "Air," and the theme – a natural and feminine landscape.
"Ultimately the aim of a designer doing a show like this is to create a garden that people can locate themselves in and be able to feel familiar in and be able to go home and try," Ippolito said.
From peaceful and serene to loud, vivid and bold -- enter the "Bloom Room."
"The name of my exhibit is 'Rhythm in Bloom,' so we're basically doing like a flower dance club," Jennifer Reed, the owner of Jennifer Designs in Mullica Hill, said. "Imagine if you could hear the colors in the flowers, the same way that you hear music."
"It's very like awe-inspiring being around these creative people," Reed said.
JB: A lot of color here.
Reed: These are gonna be floral chandeliers that are going to hung from the ceiling and then we've got disco balls. It's gonna be like sensory overload in here.
For Ippolito and her team, the support of other female designers at the Flower Show is inspiring.
"We want everybody to win," Ippolito said. "We want everybody to have a great experience, and we're so thankful for last year."
It's a competition in the best of ways.
To see the finished exhibits, along with many more cool garden displays, you'll have to check out the show.
The 2022 Philadelphia Flower Show opens to the public Saturday at 10 a.m. and runs until Sunday, June 19.
