Months of hard work, dedication and teamwork by students, faculty and staff in the Tyler School of Art and Architecture's Landscape Architecture and Horticulture programs have been recognized with a stellar showing at the 2025 Philadelphia Flower Show, which continues at the Pennsylvania Convention Center through March 9.
Temple's 2025 Flower Show exhibit, Reflections on Regeneration: An Artful Response to Our Changing Environment, has been awarded several top honors, including a PHS Gold Medal, awarded to a major exhibit that receives 90 to 100 points in the “criteria of design, horticulture, plantsmanship and educational value.”
“We have a really great group of students this year,” said Landscape Architecture Associate Professor Michael LoFurno, who guided the students through the design-build process with Kate Benisek, Associate Professor of Instruction and Program Head of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture. “They worked very well putting all of the pieces together for the exhibit, from the more homey community garden space to a more futuristic space incorporating glass, mirrors and spheres.”
At the 2025 Philadelphia Flower Show, Temple's exhibit invites visitors to "imagine a future where we embrace transformation and metamorphosis."
"Imagine a future where we balance contemplation with collective action. Where we cultivate community and celebrate the ephemeral, the evanescent, the magical beauty of the plants and creatures that surround us."
For the students working on the exhibit, LoFurno said, “I think it’s initially hard for them to visualize how all of the pieces will gel.”
“Last Thursday, they got to step back and see how it all came together — it’s a moment of revelation,” he said. “Often they are working on their own spaces or their own drawings, but when they bring in the plants in combination with the structures and complete their vision at the Flower Show, for myself and the students, it’s a very rewarding experience.”
Reflections on Regeneration was additionally awarded:
The Bulkley Medal of the Garden Club of America for a special exhibit in the field of horticulture, botany, or conservation. “It is the exhibit that best combines an important message with the ability to convey that message to the public.”
The Alfred M. Campbell Memorial Trophy, given to the “educational major exhibit that demonstrates the most successful use of a variety of plants in a unique fashion.”
“We're thrilled by the results and proud of what we have accomplished. The competition from other educational exhibitors was quite strong this year, and we are honored to receive such prestigious awards,” said Benisek. “Winning the Bulkeley Medal of the Garden Club of America, which recognizes exceptional educational merit that increases the knowledge and awareness of the viewing public, is something that we continually strive to do. Year after year, our exhibits intentionally introduce visitors to creative and beneficial things that they can do in their own gardens and gardening communities — to be recognized for these efforts is meaningful and reinforces our programs’ missions and exhibit project goals.”
Temple has the rare distinction of winning the Bulkley Medal —given to just one exhibit at the show each year — the Alfred M. Campbell Memorial Trophy and a PHS Gold Medal in 2023, 2024 and now 2025.
“I think continuing the tradition of receiving the Campbell Award is very significant,” said LoFurno. “The exhibit really displays the plants at eye level with the hillside and the meadow. The reflecting pool stands out in stark contrast to those more naturalistic spaces; it’s an area of mirrored reflection literally and figuratively, a place to reflect and think about the future.”
The student team for 2025 included Landscape Architecture students Morgan Barnes, Justin Border, Cameron Coless, Devin Dawson, Sophia Downs, Julianna Dubowski, Talya Karmen-Chan, Esther Landis, Kimberly Leptuck and Tarek Riad.
“The students were dedicated to the project since we returned from winter break in January with many hours spent outside of our regularly scheduled class meetings. The amount of mental and physical energy and focus required, especially during the week of the build at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, is notable,” Benisek said. “Everyone put in long days and evenings and had to problem-solve with a plan and sometimes execute solutions on the fly given the circumstances and constraints that everyone works with in the context of the Convention Center. One of the most impressive things I personally experienced was the students' individual and collective capacity to make things work and translate big narrative ideas into refined details in the built exhibit.”
Temple's program is one of less than a handful of accredited programs in the nation that includes a mandatory design-build experience. The hands-on aspect of the Flower Show project and the emphasis on design-build throughout Tyler's Landscape Architecture program, promotes skills students might not experience otherwise.
“Putting all the pieces of the exhibit together at the Convention Center was a lot of hard work —we had to make sure that everything fit back together correctly just the way we had it assembled in studio. Once we started assembly, everything really started coming together,” said Landscape Architecture Junior Sophia Downs. “When the exhibit was finally complete and we were able to see the finished product, I was so excited — adding plants completely transformed the exhibit and truly brought it to life. It was so rewarding and exciting to see the finished product we had really only pictured in our heads for months standing fully completed right in front of us to experience.”
Having their hard work recognized at the Flower Show, Downs said, “is such a rewarding and amazing feeling.”
“Everyone’s hard work and dedication brought us to this point. Receiving (the awards) was truly a special moment for all of us and I’m honored that our work was recognized in this way. I have gotten so much out of this experience; from learning what steps are taken after the concept design phase to physically building our design was a huge learning experience,” she said. “Working on the Flower Show is such a unique experience because it allows you to understand how a design is taken from concept to construction, while keeping it at a smaller scale providing the opportunity for extreme attention to detail. Overall, I think it was truly beneficial to my education and was such a fun experience.”
Temple also continues to be one of only a handful of exhibitors that force their own plants for their exhibits, said Benjamin Snyder, Manager of the Tyler School of Art and Architecture Greenhouse Education and Research Complex.
The recognition that the exhibit has received this year “shows that our design intent and message — with regards to both the physical hardscaping of the exhibit as well as plant selection and placement — were well-executed and readable by the PHS judging committee and hopefully, by extension, the viewing public as well,” Snyder said
“Within the larger context of nature having a therapeutic and restorative effect, one of the underlying themes of the exhibit is the effective and creative use of native plants,” he said. “The successful integration of this element demonstrates not only our students' knowledge and appreciation of native plants, but also their hands-on ability to effectively utilize them in a variety of real-life situations.”
Horticulture students Jane Lally and Luke Natale, Landscape Architecture senior Owen Lambert, and Briana Bee, who is completing the Horticultural Therapy Certificate Program, worked with Snyder to prepare the more than 1,260 plants for the exhibit.
“Our students have been working with these plants since before Winter Break last fall, carefully reviewing the forcing calendar to determine how long each particular plant needed to spend in a cooler, outdoor mulch bed, or indoor space. As the months progressed, they were monitoring the progress of the plants and adjusting as needed,” Snyder said. “For two of our Greenhouse Student Gardeners, Luke Natale and Owen Lambert, this was their second and third Shows respectively, so they had an idea of what to expect and how plants would behave as the installation day approached. For our two Directed Studies Students, Briana Bee and Jane Lally, however, this was their first time ever being involved in forcing for the Show, so everything was brand new — there was added stress of learning new growing techniques and procedures under the hard deadline of the opening of the Show. It was definitely a collaborative effort, utilizing everyone's different skills and experiences to successfully force over 1,200 plants for the Show.”
According to Briana Bee, putting the exhibit together at the Convention Center “with the Landscape Architecture and Horticulture students, professors and volunteers was one of my favorite parts of participating in the Flower Show thus far.”
“Taking the concepts and putting them into fruition was a collaborative and creative process that I enjoyed immensely,” she said. “Seeing the final product was special. I am even more excited to support the exhibit throughout the week and see reactions from guests and my family and friends! To highlight plants' ecological significance, beauty and ways to integrate them into our landscapes feels like such important work right now.”
Bee said she has been able to participate in the Flower Show this year “all while earning credit and hands-on experience for my Horticultural Therapy professional registration.”
“Visitors have said they love the different sections of the design, variety of plants and our theme of rejuvenation. I think people really appreciated the natural beauty and creativity,” she said. “I hope that people feel a call to rejuvenate with nature, take care of themselves and tend to the Earth. When I look at the components of our exhibit, I want to experience it in the real world. I feel inspired and in awe and I hope that our work evokes similar emotions in viewers.”
Benisek said she hopes the students that put together this year’s award-winning exhibit “feel a profound sense of accomplishment and revel in the commendations that they receive, from official show awards to the numerous positive comments from the viewing public.”
“I also hope that they continue to learn from their own design and construction process — the glorious wins and the nagging missteps — and recognize that constant reiteration and troubleshooting yields the strongest possible exhibit,” she said. “I hope that our exhibit helps visitors to recognize that compelling, artful landscape design can and should go hand-in-hand with an ecologically responsible approach. Students in our Landscape Architecture and Horticulture programs — the future of our professions — have the ability to make something magical and resonant. Their dedicated practice and excellent work are evidence that the future is bright!”
For a behind the scenes look at the making of Reflections on Regeneration, view the videos on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/templeuniversityamblercampus.
Building upon a rich history of environmental teaching that dates back more than a century, Temple's Landscape Architecture and Horticulture programs are a unique blend of disciplines, providing students with the design and plant background necessary to succeed in any aspect of the Green Industry.
The Landscape Architecture and Horticulture programs, part of the Tyler School of Art and Architecture, are committed to excellence in ecologically-based education. The goal of the programs is to train leaders in the art and science of horticulture (A.S., B.S., and certificate programs) and landscape architecture (MLArch and B.S. programs). The programs provide students with knowledge and understanding of the environment so that they can improve the quality of our urban, suburban and rural communities.
For more information on the Horticulture and Landscape Architecture programs at Temple University Ambler, visit tyler.temple.edu/programs/landscape-architecture-horticulture.
For more information about the 2025 Philadelphia Flower Show, visit theflowershow.com.