GOING FOR THE GOLD: Mercer County Community College students are entering the Philadelphia Horticultural Society’s Philadelphia Flower Show for the 12th time, and hoping for a fifth gold medal. The Ornamental Horticulture program students won a gold medal in 2024 for their “Two Cities, One Garden” entry, pictured here. (Photo courtesy of MCCC)
By Wendy Greenberg
Ornamental Horticulture students at Mercer County Community College (MCCC) are digging into the local roots of horticultural history this year for their entry in the 2026 Philadelphia Flower Show, and finding a lot to unearth, including a local nursery. The students themselves have a history of being recognized for their efforts, including four gold medals.
They are again preparing for the acclaimed show, with some help from graphic design students through hands-on classes conducted in two greenhouses and surrounding gardens. There they have been learning aesthetic design, how to care for at least 300 different woody and herbaceous plant specimens, how to produce and manage greenhouse crops, and pest management.
This year, MCCC will be among eight college and community college exhibitions, about the average for educational exhibitors year over year, said a Flower Show spokesperson.
The theme of the 2026 Philadelphia Horticulture Society (PHS) Philadelphia Flower Show is “Rooted: Origins of American Gardening,” and takes place February 28 through March 8. The Philadelphia Flower Show is the nation’s largest and longest-running horticultural event and fundraiser, according to its website, and is in its 197th year.
For MCCC students, the in-progress 700-square foot display came about when the PHS asked schools to select a person or group of people “who inspire us horticulturally,” said Amy Iseneker Ricco, MCCC professor and programs coordinator. MCCC students selected three New Jersey innovators, each coming from a specific area of the industry: floriculture pioneer Peter Henderson, the Flemer family of Kingston’s Princeton Nurseries, and greenhouse innovator William Roberts of Rutgers University. The entry’s title is “Peter Henderson to the Present: The Horticulturists of the Garden State.”
“PHS determines the overall show theme,” said Ricco, “and then they give the educational exhibitors a sub-theme. For this year, they wanted us to pick either a person, or a group of people, who inspired us. From that point, the students started doing research and we intentionally focused on horticulturists from New Jersey. As a program, we wanted to focus this year on floriculture, nursery, and greenhouse, which is what led us to selecting the three.”
According to a biography on the Smithsonian Library website, Henderson (1822-1890), came to America in 1843 from Scotland, and worked as a market gardener in Jersey City. During the Civil War he moved his floral business to South Bergen. Called “the father of horticulture and ornamental gardening,” he published, in 1865, Gardening for Profit, the first book written on market gardening in the U.S., which sold 100,000 copies. He followed with Practical Floriculture in 1868. In 1871 he established a seed company called Peter Henderson & Company, which developed vegetables and flowers suited to American conditions, and marketed the seeds using a five-color lithograph in his catalog, Everything for the Garden.
The Flemer family of Princeton Nurseries is well-known in the area. Today, the Mapleton Preserve in Kingston is the preserved core of Princeton Nurseries — once the largest commercial nursery in the U.S.. At its peak it occupied 1,000 acres and employed 300 workers. The nursery was established in 1913 by William Flemer Sr. and introduced many important plant varieties. According to a history by Friends of Princeton Nursery Lands, Princeton Nurseries was famous for introducing new varieties of shade and ornamental trees, and it is credited with designing equipment to improve production and harvesting, for horticultural innovations.
William “Bill” Roberts had a distinguished 41-year career as an extension specialist in bioresource engineering at Rutgers, according to the Rutgers University website. He was among a small number of U.S. Department of Agriculture Cooperative Extension faculty that achieved the level of distinguished professor, the highest professorial ranking at Rutgers. “He developed the first air-inflated, double-layer polyethylene greenhouse covering system, an innovation that, once developed for commercial applications, revolutionized the use of greenhouses worldwide and became a boon to the agricultural industry,” states the Rutgers website. “Today, approximately 65 percent of all commercial greenhouses in the United States and globally use this air-inflated, double-glazing system.”
The MCCC display “will be full of a variety of floriculture crops like cut flowers, vegetables (including varieties developed by Peter Henderson), nursery crops (including plants developed by Princeton Nurseries), and native plants found in the wooded areas of New Jersey,” said Ricco.
Ricco said the first year entering the show, was 2014 and the students have competed every year except for 2021. “It was a student in the program who initially encouraged us to get involved,” she said in an email.
The student work is extracurricular, she said, although it is incorporated into classes when it is appropriate to do so. “The preparation hours feel countless leading up to the build week. Currently, we have had six students working on the project with that number increasing now that the spring semester has started.”
They won the Gold Medal Award in 2024 and also the PHS Gardening for the Greater Good Award “for the exhibit that best exemplifies PHS’ mission to activate horticulture and gardening as a force for the ‘greater good’ by advancing the health and well-being of people and their environments.”
“I think we have been successful for many reasons,” said Ricco. “One is that the instructors in Mercer’s Horticulture Program provide the students with strong education and leadership as we navigate the planning, design, and implementation process. My colleague, David DeFrange, has guided students through the design process, plant selection, and construction utilizing his 30-plus years of industry experience in the landscape and nursery industry, and I have worked with the students on implementing the education, plant forcing, and dealing with the coordination of the efforts between Mercer and PHS.
“Another reason is because we have dedicated students. Lastly, our collaboration with other departments on campus so other students in other programs can bring their talents to the table.”
MCCC’s Ornamental Horticulture offers an A.A.S. degree program which trains students in the areas of landscape and floral design, landscape maintenance, nursery and greenhouse production, and turf maintenance. Also offered is a Plant Science A.S. degree program.
The Flower Show gold medals are not the only awards students in the program have received. Ricco is also proud of additional awards “that speak to the quality of the instruction our students receive,” she said. “The Chicago Horticultural Society Flower Show Medal is awarded to a major exhibit in the Educational category showing outstanding horticultural skill and knowledge in a nationally recognized Flower Show. We have received that award three times.”
The Philadelphia Flower Show is at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, 101 Arch Street, Philadelphia, February 28 through March 7 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and March 8 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, visit phsonline.org/the-flower-show.