PHS, Park Service continue long partnership
Decades of close ties led to 2016 theme ‘Explore America’
“You’ll get to see Old Faithful explode, you may see a puppy cam on the Denali [Park] sled dogs and kennels — all kinds of fun things like that will be happening throughout the day.”
— Sam Lemheney, PHS chief of shows and events “We’ll have rangers from parks all over the system: from Acadia, from some desert parks, as many as we can get here.” — Cynthia MacLeod, Independence National Park superintendent “From sunrise to sunset, to nighttime skies over the parks — we’re going to try to show as many of the 408 parks as we possibly can.” — Sam Lemheney, PHS chief of shows and events
>>The partnership between the Philadelphia Horticultural Society and the National Park Service has been germinating for more than a decade and has come full bloom with the 2016 Flower Show.
This year’s show will celebrate the Park Service’s centennial, and the theme “Explore America” reflects the close ties both organizations have had over the years, while visitors will be able to enjoy displays meant to evoke parks across the country.
“The Horticultural Society and the Park Service have had a long partnership. [The Horticultural Society] used to have their headquarters in buildings that are part of Independence National Park,” said Independence National Historical Park Superintendent Cynthia MacLeod.
Specifically, PHS headquarters was located from 1963 through ’96 at 325 Walnut St., and in 1966, PHS hosted a visit from Lady Bird Johnson, who dedicated an 18th century garden at that site, according to Janet Evans, associate director of PHS’s McLean Library.
PHS horticulturists have also cared for gardens on Park Service properties around Philadelphia, and longtime Flower Show attendees may remember a Park Service photo display roughly a decade ago. In 2001, PHS helped plan the Park Service’s Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program conference held in Philadelphia that April, and the two partnered for a plant pruning workshop in 2009, on clearing organic debris from NPS’s Old Swedes Church in 2013 and on a sustainable turfgrass presentation in 2014.
Sam Lemheney, PHS’s chief of shows and events, said PHS had been talking about similar themes like choosing seven wonders in the United States to commemorate, and when the Park Service theme was proposed roughly two years ago, “it really made sense.”
“Every one of our exhibitors or designers on the show floor have been asked to pick a different national park,” he said, and for the past several months, a Park Service ranger has been helping connect those exhibitors with rangers and other staff from that park.
“If somebody picked d Yosemite [National Park], rk], they can arrange a communi-mmunication specialist or rangerger from Yosemite that can help them tell the story and help themhem give more information” about ut the park, Lemheney said.
When you arrive at thehe show, Flower Show displays will evoke national parks from seaa to shining sea, and visitors will bee able to learn more about parks at a Find Your Park Pavilion, by followingwing trails running throughout thee main exhibit floor and by hearing in-person presentations from rangers who work at those pa parks.
“We’ll ha have rangers fro from parks all over the sy system: from Ac Acadia, from som some desert pa parks, as ma many as we can get here — more than jus just Valley Fo Forge and Ind Independe dence,” said M MacLeod, na naming Yo Yosemite, Biscayne, Shenando doah, Fire Island and Saguaro as other national parks whose ran rangers will visit.
Skype connections will also be available at the show’s central pavilion with rangers across the country, likely much of the lower 48 states and possibly with parks in Alaska and Hawaii. MacLeod said online features include a walk through the Redwoods with a ranger at Muir Woods national park in California and live talks with Betty Reid-Soskin, the oldest national park ranger who works at Rosie the Riveter NHS.
Kids can join the fun by picking up a Junior Ranger activity guide, and once they complete all of its activities activities, they can be sworn in as an official Junior Ranger by the professionals.
Connecting remotely to other locations at the Find Your Park pavilion is a first for the Flower Show, Lemheney said, and will let visitors look in live to parks across the country.
“You’ll get to see Old Faithful explode, you may see a puppy cam on the Denali [Park] sled dogs and kennels — all kinds of fun things like that will be happening throughout the day,” he said.
The Big Timber Lodge will start every visitor’s journey and feature another Flower Show first: 40-foot-tall projections screens included in the roof that will show scenes and imagery of parks across the country.
“We’ll be putting together great montages of beautiful, high-definition images and video of the national parks to really showcase the breadth and variety” of the parks, according to Lemheney.
Those video presentations will show scenes “from sunrise to sunset, to nighttime skies over the parks — we’re going to try to show as many of the 408 parks as we possibly can,” he said.