Aloha- I'm in love.

Philadelphia is usually filled with peculiar smells.

You've got that odd, urine stench from the subway which you ignore, except to tuck your hands safely in your pockets to avoid touching the stair railings. There's the waft of baked goods- Amaroso rolls, pretzels and the like. And there's the people who smell heavily of meat, onions and cheese whiz. Or provolone if you prefer...

But this week, Philadelphia smells like Hawaii- which smells strongly of flowers with just an underlying, delicious stench of kona coffee. It's the Philadelphia flower show, Five-0 style.

And I am in love.

But of everything bright and colorful and tropical, the highlight for me was perhaps one of the most ordinary of all the displays. Ordinary in the sense that it was simply vegetables- but grown in the most spectacular way.

The garden above was so fun- interplanted and just a mess of all sorts of vegetables with no apparent pattern.

Tomatoes mixed with asparagus and kale and beets and everything inbetween....

And there was that wall of lettuce....

The overhead cherry tomato garden with clusters of tomatoes hanging like grapes....

Spectacular and simple cold frames....

And walls of herbs that you just want to run and jump onto, like those inflatable velcro carnival walls...

I think i found my dream house- much better than the candy house of Hansel and Grettle.

And that doesn't even begin to describe a fraction of the show...

Dresses made from succulants,

Terrarriums of every kind,

Unusual plants,

Gaudy Hawaiian decorations,

New uses for old items (like this tire planter),

 And of course, of course, the Organic Gardening Magazine culinary symposium, introduced by the editor-in-chief of Organic Gardening Magazine. You know when Justin Beiber or Taylor Swift walk onto the stage and people are so excited they do that awkward, laughing, crying, warbly mouthed, stroke-like droopy-faced screaming?

That was me internally.

So what about you? Have you gone to a flower show before? Are you planning to go? What were your experiences like? Share!