Mostra Mercato di Piante e Fiori: Spring Flowers and Plants

Starting on April 25th my favorite market comes back to town. Mostra Mercato di Piante e Fiori takes place each year in the Giardino dell’Orticoltura from the 25th of April until the 1st of May. This is a great festival for all you green thumbs out there. The garden is packed with all types of flowers that thrive under the Tuscan sun. Walking through the stone paths, you can smell the unique herbs and the exotic flowers that are for sale. The Tuscany Horticulture Society, promoted and supported by the Academy of Georgofili, was founded in Florence in 1854. The aim was to ‘encourage and assist all those improvements that knows how to introduce the art to obtain valuable products beyond the content of the orchards and gardens’. From there they adopted this motto  ‘Honor Campis et Hortis’. It was decided to stimulate and promote interest for the horticulture and gardening aspect by organizing regular public displays of vegetables, flowers and fruits.

Finally they built the great Tepidario (glass pavillion used to display flowers and plants) designed by the architect Giacomo Roster which opened in 1880 and was the first national exhibition of the industry. In 1876, the first issue of ‘Bulletin of the Royal Horticultural Society of Tuscany’  was published which became a reference point for the farming at the time both in Italy and abroad. Today the company, maintains and develops the original objectives; publishes a ‘bulletin’, organizes exhibitions for the spring and fall. The Mostra Mercato di Piante e Fiori happens each spring starting the 25th of April to the 1st of May. And there is also an autumn festival during the month of October. The festival encompasses all of the surrounding flowers shops, greenhouses and farms that produce and sell these exquisite summer flowers and plants. There are herbs, large plants imported from warm climates, lemon trees, large basil plants and much more. The scents you will smell here are heavenly.

It is a free to enter Giardino dell’Orticoltura
The Mostra is open from 9am-7:30pm
Entrance is on Via Vittorio Emanuele II 4 and Via Bolognese 17