Jackson Fox, a University of Delaware student and member of the UD Philadelphia Flower Show Club, works on the installation ahead of the Philadelphia Flower Show.

From lab to landscape

Article by Michele Walfred Photos courtesy of Karen Gartley and UD Flower Show Club February 28, 2025

UD Flower Show Club celebrates horticulture science at the Philadelphia Flower Show

Thanks to science, we already have a good idea of what gardens will look like in the future. Student members of the University of Delaware Philadelphia Flower Show Club turned to the laboratory for inspiration with their educational exhibit, Lab to Landscape. UD’s nod to botanical sciences celebrates the progressive steps necessary to keep pace with the Gardens of Tomorrow, the 2025 Philadelphia Flower Show theme. The event is held March 1-9 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Lab coats and Petri dishes may not be the first images we consider when we think about gardening. Still, for home gardeners eager to don their sun hats and sharpen their pruning shears this season, the exhibit serves as a reminder that the recipe for show-stopping garden success almost always begins behind the scenes with proven ingredients tested in a laboratory setting.

“That is what our educational exhibit, Lab to Landscape, aims to illuminate,” said Karen Gartley, UD director of the Delaware Soil Testing Program and co-advisor to the club. “This year’s exhibit shows the scientific journey and plant development of our favorite plants before they reach the retail market and into the home landscape.”

Humans have tinkered with plant materials for thousands of years. Plant breeding, crosses, hybridization, resistance to disease and drought, the endurance of a lasting dramatic bloom and other desirable features such as flower color owe their beginnings to human intervention. Newer DNA innovations, such as CRISPR (short for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats”), allow for select genetic modifications that pave the way for high performance and characteristics consumers demand and expect.

The UD Flower Show Club members take a brief break for a team photo on Thursday afternoon. “We will be here until 1 or 2 a.m., or however long it takes to get done and ready for judging Friday morning at 7 a.m.,” said Karen Gartley.“It’s been a long week.”

The UD Flower Show Club 2025 exhibit demonstrates these stages, from cross-pollinating samples and using CRISPR in the lab to growth in the greenhouse, performance evaluation in a trial garden, and selection as part of a landscape design.

Gartley credits the wide range of students who advocated for their specific interests within the club. This year marks the 15th year of UD student participation in the world’s oldest and largest indoor horticulture event. An expected quarter million people will attend this year. Student members include landscape architecture majors and plant science majors in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, as well as students from across the University, many of whom remain in the club for several years.

This is the third Philadelphia Flower Show for Jessica Weyl, a senior plant science major with a minor in landscape horticulture.

“Our exhibits showcase art, design, horticulture, architecture and science,” Weyl said. “The club brings together students with a variety of interests and experience and allows each one to shine in their own area.”

That diversity brought something different to the drawing board during the exhibit's planning stages.

“Some had powerful and specific ideas, but part of the learning experience was working cooperatively and coming to a consensus,” Gartley said.

Jackson Fox, a sophomore landscape architecture major, felt pride in the teamwork and how the project evolved to reach a more refined look.

“That process is so important. Trying new designs and layouts over and over again helped me to think more creatively and design a more interesting exhibit,” Fox said.

Philadelphia Flower Show visitors will stroll past familiar garden favorites, annuals, perennials, shrubs and evergreens such as Knock Out roses, Encore azaleas, heucheras, caladiums, dianthus and Norway spruce, all of which owe their enduring success to the scientific process.

After months of planning and a grueling five-day installation process, Lab to Landscape is ready to showcase the marriage of science, design and student dedication at this high-profile event.