“The flowers that bloom in the spring tra la! Breathe promise of merry sunshine.” — Gilbert and Sullivan
Well, if Punxsutawney Phil is correct, that won’t be for a little while yet. But happily, you won’t need to wait for spring because the Philadelphia Flower Show is back! Running March 2-10, this year’s theme is “United by Flowers.” Celebrating its 195th year, the show is the major fundraiser for the work that the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) does throughout the year. Personally, one of my favorite things about the show — in addition to the breathtaking, show-stopping displays — is the fragrance that envelops you when you walk through the doors. Tra la indeed!
This year’s entryway explores the theme of “Edges and Reflections” and boasts the show’s largest body of water ever created. Once inside, there are dazzling displays created by gardeners and florists from all over the world as well as talented local professionals. In addition to the exhibits, there are a ton of activities to try out. You can check out a workshop, build your own floral crown, or go to a potting party hosted by designer Tu Bloom, the official botanical artist of the GRAMMY Awards. Bring your pooch along for Fido Friday or Shimmer & Shine at the after-hours dance party. There are vendors and craftspeople, and experts galore to help you get your garden groove going this spring. I could take up this whole column listing the myriad of things to do and see at the Flower Show but instead, I’ll wrap up with another favorite display. We love gadgets and interesting tools in our family so a good bit of time was spent oohing and ahhing at the collection of vintage tools assembled by this week’s Portrait for the show last year. He’s back with a whole new fascinating exhibit of rare and unusual gardening tools.
David Rubin, is the founding principal of DAVID RUBIN Land Collective, a landscape architecture, urban design and planning studio committed to practicing socially-purposeful design. David’s visionary contribution to the field in “empathy-driven design” is a hallmark of the studio, earning increasing renown for fusing issues of social justice in cities with excellence in the design of public spaces. The award-winning landscape architect was recently honored with Garden Club of America’s highest accolade in celebration of a career dedicated to restoring the connective tissue of our cities and communities. Collecting antique and rare garden tools is a personal pursuit that he happily shares again with show goers this year.
Give me a quick rundown on your collection and why it’s important.
Gardening and landscape are political acts that people undertake to define themselves as individuals, as neighborhoods, as communities and as countries. The beauty of this collection is that in their age, which ranges from the 1700s to the present day, they really focus on how people have manipulated their environment for self representation or the representation of others. The thing about gardens in general is that you have to be a highly empathetic person to create a living environment for something that cannot communicate with you other than performance. So what I love about the collection is that I can hold a hedge-clipper that was created by a blacksmith and a wood turner 300 years ago. It connects me to them and also to the person that wielded that tool. It’s a wonderfully visual, wonderfully tactile collection.
Let’s learn a little about you. Where did you sprout forth?
I’m originally from Merion Station, right outside of Philadelphia and I grew up in the western suburbs. Merion Station was the second stop on the Main Line train, the kind of neighborhood where homes were little ¼-acre pieces of land separated by hedgerows. I remember Babis Pharmacy and Murray’s delicatessen on Montgomery Ave., where our home was also. Particularly during adolescence, my home was my safe haven from the challenges of the school I was attending where I was seen as different and challenged both physically and mentally on a daily basis. I used to come home and create the environment that I could feel safe in and that was in my parents’ backyard. I was able to manipulate it to become something that would be supportive of me and the challenges I was facing beyond the boundaries of my home.
[Chuckling] By the end of my adolescence, my parents had the most beautiful backyard around, but it wasn’t without trials and tribulations along the way. Tip: If you’re going to move your mother’s favorite climbing rose, you have to remember to take the roots with it. There’s a lot to learn when dealing with living things. It was clear that this was a combination of art and science. You have to be conscious of what makes them thrive and that’s where empathy comes in. My practice, The Land Collective, has a mission statement focused on empathy, which has its origins in the way I saved myself as a child from the challenges I faced outside of my safe haven.
How did your difference present itself?
I can’t really say, because I didn’t have the epiphany that “gay” and “David” were the same thing until I was a junior in high school, but others saw it. Meanness is stimulated through a lack of kindness and kindness is established through understanding, which comes largely through communication and dialog which was something not easily accomplished in adolescence, especially in the ’70s and ’80s. When I did have the insight to put “Gay” and “David” together, it was just shortly before the NY Times ran the story on “Gay Cancer.” So just as I was having this awakening, about what and who I was, I found my identity was parallel with death and fatality. It was a terrifying time.
I can imagine. What did you do outside of gardening to keep balanced?
I played the guitar and I was also an avid model maker. The things I chose to do were things done in isolation. I wasn’t a team player if you will. The things that brought me joy were focused on creation and putting things together. It was a way of having control of something when you had control over nothing else. Making something wonderful out of something that was in pieces.
Tell me a little about your company.
The name of the company is DAVID RUBIN Land Collective. It’s a landscape architecture, urban design and planning studio committed to practicing socially-purposeful design. We’ve done projects all over the states and overseas — Berlin, Rome, Cape Town — all over. We strive to create humanist spaces in which conversations can take place. We want our landscapes to be accessible, not just physically but as a place to communicate. In particular, in the Anthropocene, when we as human beings make decisions for every other living creature on this earth, it is important that the places that Land Collective creates are loved by the citizens that occupy those spaces or they will eventually be erased. Even when we’re designing in nature where there will be less human engagement, human beings still need to appreciate and love it or it too will be erased. We try to humanize the challenges of the climate crises to make it understood at a more personal level, to make the infrastructure that will safeguard us sacred.
What’s one of your favorite projects?
Well, they all are, but the most favorite is always the one that’s just coming into conceptualization. But a recent project that I take great pride in is Franklin Park in Washington, DC. It’s a five-acre downtown park and we met many accessibility challenges. It’s now one of the signature spaces in downtown DC. It’s loved by the citizenry that occupies the spaces whether they be the unhoused, or affluent members of society. My belief is that in civic spaces, everyone should feel welcomed no matter their economic status and Franklin Park is a perfect example of that.
Bravo! I’m always intrigued by people’s influences. What did your parents do?
My father, Lionel Rubin, was an entrepreneur. He founded the field of veterinary ophthalmology, animal eye husbandry. He was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and I grew up going to the vet schools with him, which played a significant part in my life. My mother had a Masters in education and started the Act 101 Program at St. Josephs, the mission was to help young people stay in school. She was working at Cabrini College when she retired.
So you get that empathy and desire to help people from both sides.
Yes, even though my father’s work was very analytical, an animal can’t tell you what’s wrong with them and it’s a similar thing with horticulture.
Any siblings?
Yes, an older sister Carol and younger brother John. They’re both married with children in the suburbs and my husband and I live in Queen Village. So we’re all still in the area.
When did you come out to the family?
When I was in college, it was not easy at all. The roles of my parents switched. Where my mother and I had been close and always in dialogue, there was rejection and where my father had been more analytical and removed, he repositioned himself to be the intermediary and communicator. It is a memory I love most about my father aside from fishing and scotch. My mother is now 100% accepting and loves my husband. She got the lawyer she always wanted in him!
How long have you been together?
It’s been 30 years.
Wow! Congrats. How did you get involved with the Flower Show?
Two years ago, we were asked if our studio would create a garden for the show. Now, we don’t do gardens. Gardening is very different from the business that I run, which is focused on the design of cities and civic spaces: plazas, parks, campuses, large projects that take many years to come to fruition. It’s very unusual to have a landscape architect who is also a gardener. But because of my love of it as a hobby, I said we would take it on. We wanted it to still reflect our mission, so we asked if we could have a garden where people could occupy the center, as opposed to looking in from the edge. A place where people could sit and linger and talk. We created a garden called Embrace. It had a trellis element that was comprised of 500 yards of muslin, torn and hand-dyed in rainbow colors. We were honored with a silver medal, which apparently was a big thing for a first-time exhibitor.
They asked us to do it again but once was enough. Because it’s not what we do. It was a lot of work. Six months of prep work, two weeks of installation, then the show and then two days to take it down. It was exhausting and incredibly expensive! So instead, we did an exhibit from our tool collection. We grouped them in categories and tried to tell stories about their usage. We’ve been invited to do it again and this year, we’re displaying them in different categories that explore things like the binary qualities in tool manufacturing and advertising which build on the stereotypes of men and women, or the section on tools and identity which deals with the tools and ownership. Several of the vintage tools are emblazoned with the names of the owners and were held sacred by them; there’s also a section on children and gardening and a few others as well.
When did you start the collection?
This collection is about 20-25 years old. I found the first pieces in London on Portobello Road. Since then the collection has become fairly well-known and I often have people come to me with finds. Though I still enjoy going out to collect things myself.
What would you say is your most unusual piece?
There are a couple, but I’d say the glass Victorian cucumber straightener is pretty unique. The Victorians hated anything that was not in line so they used this glass cylinder. They would suspend the baby cucumber inside and it would grow into the conformed shape of the glass. It speaks not only to the Victorian frame of mind, it was also an early example of manipulation in horticulture. There’s an apple picker lined with leather so that the fruit isn’t bruised as you take it off the tree. The pieces I love the most are the hedge clippers. This one is an 18th century German piece, hand forged and decoratively engraved and stamped with the symbol of the blacksmith. It’s amazing what talent they had.
What’s a favorite movie or play about gardening?
It’s a play, Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia.” I hope they make it into a movie! It’s about love, landscape architecture and chaos theory, [laughing] which I think is a perfect summary of what I do!
Who do you wish would commission work from you?
Stephen Hawking. I often lecture and joke that I believe that he wanted to be a landscape architect but accidentally ended up in cosmology.
I was hired to film the wedding of the owner of Robertson’s Flowers and there were flowers from floor to ceiling. I know you’re not a florist but were you decked out for your wedding?
Actually, we got married at City Hall in the middle of COVID! We were married by Judge Dan Anders and were only allowed to have 25 people with us. Both of our fathers have passed away, but both mothers were present and we were joined by all of our siblings and as many of our nieces and nephews as we could get there, which added up to 25. The 26th person who we had to sneak in was our photographer! We then had a cupcake and champagne celebration in Love Park on the most beautiful August day, under a stellar blue sky, and we went to our beach house for our honeymoon.
And you didn’t even have to design it!
The Philadelphia Flower Show will be held March 2-10 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, 1101 Arch St. For tickets or more information, visit phsonline.org/the-flower-show.