Rooted in Impact: How Planet Bee Brought Native Bee Conservation to the Philadelphia Flower Show
- Ray Choudhury
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
Planet Bee got the opportunity to join the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) in celebrating the 197th year of the award-winning Philadelphia Flower Show, hosted at the Pennsylvania Convention Center from February 28th to March 8th.
The Philadelphia Flower Show is a world-renowned gardening event, and the PHS’s main fundraiser for its acclaimed greening work to advance health and well-being for all.
This year’s theme was “Rooted: Origins of American Gardening”, reflecting on the gardening legacies we inherited from past generations, and the ones we are growing for the future. The showcase offered a diverse look at the personal stories, traditions, and inspirations that connect us all.
Planet Bee were honored to attend, and help PHS kick off their first weekend through hands-on seed ball learning and our Know to Grow stage presentation. We were thrilled to be able to connect with 1,500 attendees, including families, gardeners, and educators.
KNOW TO GROW
As part of the Know to Grow speaker series, Jamie Chan, Executive Director, Joelle Dugay Program Coordinator & Educator, and Melissa Marazas, Education Manager & Educator presented “Bee a Habitat Hero: Caring for Native Bees in the Mid-Atlantic”.
Supporting the Rooted vision, this presentation engaged 200 attendees in conversation about regional biodiversity and foundational pollinators. We shared all about native bees, and how best to conserve these pollinators who have been critical to plant reproduction and regional food webs in the Mid-Atlantic for generations.
The Planet Bee team also had the chance to meet Edward Amoah, a Penn State Ph.D. candidate whose engineering work focuses on smart native bee houses. His research explores how technology can improve our understanding and support of native pollinators, critical to food security and ecosystem health, and after interviewing him, Jamie, Joelle, and Melissa were excited to finally connect in person (read the full interview here).
CONNECTING WITH FAMILIES THROUGH OUR ALL-AGES PROGRAMMING
We were thrilled to bring hands-on stewardship activities and educational experiences to PHS’s community through our Family and All-Ages Programming: Kids’ Cocoon and Family Frolic!
Attendees got to participate in “Beeing up Close” at Kids’ Cocoon on Saturday, experiencing an up close and personal look at different bee species using scientific tools like magnifying glasses and microscopes. Seeing these species in so much detail is a great chance to strengthen our environmental literacy, helping us to identify these bees in the wild!
At Family Frolic on Sunday, 1,000 gardeners and families got their hands dirty for the sake of stewardship, using native North American wildflower seeds to create seed balls perfect for supporting local pollinators and biodiversity. We had a great time sharing this easy and fun way to strengthen local ecosystems.
Special thanks to our volunteer educators, Matti Curran, a Philadelphia-based educator,
Angie Brown, a Philadelphia master gardener, and Laura Winslow, Cathy Webster, Jan Beck and Maura Loshnowsky who has supported Planet Bee at every flower show since we started in 2023! They did a stellar job facilitating Planet Bee’s programming, communicating Planet Bee’s mission of stewardship and environmental education to create future green leaders!
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
Thank you to the Philadelphia Horticultural Society for allowing us to take part in this iconic event. We were honored to be able to interact with so many attendees and discover how we are all connected through a shared commitment to sustainability and a respect for gardening legacies and traditions. We look forward to bringing these lessons into our continued stewardship this spring.
If you would like to learn more about how to make an individual impact, view our talk here and find out how you can start stewarding habitats for native bees!
Individual actions may seem small, but if we all take these steps together, small actions can turn into big impacts. As a community, we hold the power to create meaningful change for native bees and pollinator habitats. As we move into Spring, think, what is something you can do to make a change for our native pollinators?