Flowers

We did very little during the Passover holiday. There isn't much to celebrate at the moment and anyway it was extremely hot for some of the days of Hol Hamoed, the five days between the first day of Passover and the last day. I had however booked tickets for "Flowers" in Tel Aviv, which was advertised as the largest flower exhibition in Israel. We went to a wonderful flower show in Haifa back in 2012 and I was intrigued to see how this new show would compare. It was cool inside the Expo Tel Aviv complex, where the exhibition took place, though unfortunately we were far from the only visitors! It seems that every Israeli thought to escape the warm weather too and let's just say it was rather crowded.

The "Flowers" displays were created using over two million flowers. Many of these were rare species not native to Israel and were specially imported for the event, along with flowers that were grown in Israel, including in the Gaza Envelope.

Each hall in the exhibition had a different theme. The first hall was the Tropical Hall. It featured floral monkeys, a huge yellow, red and white snake which towered above the crowds, and a peacock with a four metre long tail that stretched out on the floor like a colourful fan. The peacock was made up of a variety of flowers including scabious and lisianthus. Other animals included butterflies, a lion, a zebra and more. 

Next was the Hall of the Planets, which included the sun, the moon and the earth. The earth was woven with beautiful blue lobelia flowers, while the crescent shaped moon was designed using petunia and lobelia. The sun was created in yellow and orange, using bidens, marigolds and chrysanthemum. 

The Hall of Legends covered the world of fairy tales. Alice in Wonderland's tea party table, below, included beautiful tiered cakes and cupcakes sculpted with more than 4,500 flowers such as carnations, Belvedere rose, alstroemeria, Craspedia, orchids and more.

The Yellow Ribbon is a symbol of hope and solidarity, expressing support for bringing home the hostages. More than 250 hostages were taken captive by Hamas following the 7th October terrorist attack. Since the hostage deal between Israel-Hamas in November 2023, 125 remain in captivity.

I wasn't a fan of the next exhibit, the magical Swan Lake. Ten swans covered with 5,000 chrysanthemum and white alstroemeria, which were grown especially for the exhibition, swam on a huge lake. Unfortunately they looked more like little fat ducks than swans to me! I have not included a photo.

The finale of the exhibition was a giant chessboard. The game pieces included a green knight decorated in pink at the base and with a mane made of amaranth flowers. The queen had a green base with 3 rings shaped like crowns, above, all made of alstroemeria flowers, scabiosa and orchid branches. The height of the chess pieces ranged from 2 to 2.5 metres.

How did the exhibition compare to the one we had seen in Haifa all those years ago? There were way too many people inside the buildings, making it impossible to see the flowers properly. While some of the displays were impressive, it was hard to enjoy them while jostling with the crowds. More attention should have been paid to entry times and the number of entrants should have been limited. In addition signage was poor. I would have liked to have read more about the flowers and the meaning of each piece, though frankly I could barely see the signs that were there anyway!

But, the flowers were beautiful, and that's what mattered. With everything going on in Israel today, it was nice to escape into the cool halls for a couple of hours to enjoy the beauty of the displays.

* This post has been shared on Sundays on Silverado, The Good. The Random. The Fun., Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday), My Corner of the World and Floral Friday Fotos.