The story
Newport Flower Show in Newport
The Newport Flower Show is an annual horticultural exhibition held at one of Newport, Rhode Island's Gilded Age mansion estates, generally understood to be organized by the Preservation Society of Newport County. The show combines competitive floral design and horticulture classes with garden tours across the mansion's grounds.
Newport's Gilded Age mansions were originally built with elaborate formal gardens as an essential part of their design, since the wealthy families who summered there in the late nineteenth century saw ornamental horticulture as an important expression of taste and status, employing dedicated garden staff to maintain grounds that rivaled the mansions themselves in scale and ambition.