“Passport to the World” is the theme for this year’s Philadelphia Flower Show, taking place February 28 through March 7, 2010 in the Pennsylvania Convention Center, 12th and Arch Streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Each year, some 60 professional landscapers, florists, and horticultural and educational organizations create full-scale gardens and floral displays. Centerpiece will be the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s “Explorer’s Garden”. This year, it’ll feature a 28-foot-high hot-air balloon, covered in more than 80,000 dried flowers. The Victoria-era display, filled with varieties of plants like those collected through the remarkable Wilkes Expedition (1838-42) and more recent finds from Longwood Gardens Inc., Morris Arboretum, the University of Pennsylvania, and the U.S. Botanic Gardens, harkens back to the Flower Show’s roots as a showcase for new plant discoveries. Giant pads of floating Victoria water lilies and blooms introduced to America at early Shows will fill the larger-than-life Wardian cases throughout the display. More than 150 demonstrations and lectures are scheduled, there’s shopping for garden supplies and plants, a wine and spirits bar, and a dessert and coffee bar.

Although the show is open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. both Sundays, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. on weekdays, the organizers suggest that the “best viewing hours” are after 4 p.m. All proceeds from the show support The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and its urban greening program, Philadelphia Green.