For the fifth time since 2017, Mercer County Community College students showed their landscape and nursery skills to win a gold medal at the Pennsylvania horticultural Society’s Philadelphia Flower Show. (Photo by Jeffrey E. Tryon)

It’s a gold medal Best in Show again for Mercer County Community College’s (MCCC) entry in the Philadelphia Flower Show.

The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) has announced the award winners of the 2026 PHS Philadelphia Flower Show, “Rooted: Origins of American Gardening.” This year’s show in the Pennsylvania Convention Center, running until March 8, features landscapes, floral artistry, and innovative design. The theme invites visitors to explore how gardening traditions continue to evolve and inspire. 

MCCC was recognized for outstanding emerging talent in the Educational Exhibits category, which features high school and university participants. Their gold medal-winning exhibit is “Peter Henderson to Present: The Horticulturists of the Garden State.”

The exhibit traces New Jersey’s horticultural legacy from pioneering 19th-century grower Peter Henderson to modern innovators who shaped plant production across the state. MCCC students selected three New Jersey innovators, each coming from a specific area of the industry: floriculture pioneer Henderson, the Flemer family of Kingston’s Princeton Nurseries, and greenhouse innovator William Roberts of Rutgers University.

Not only did MCCC win the PHS flower Show Cup for the Best in Show in the Educational Division, but it also won the prestigious Chicago Horticultural Society Flower Show Medal.  

This is the fifth gold medal for the MCCC students since 2017. A team of students in the award-winning Horticulture and Plant Science program at MCCC, led by professors Amy Ricco and David DeFrange, prepared for the show through weekly meetings and work sessions along with their regular course work all conducted in the college’s greenhouse complex.