Mr. Flower Fantastic takes over New York Botanical Garden’s Orchid Show

After an early February cold snap and another winter storm Sunday, spring at the New York Botanical Garden has been running on its own schedule.

Anonymous floral sculptor Mr. Flower Fantastic has taken over the garden’s Orchid Show, an annual event held indoors, with monumental sculptures depicting street scenes of New York City.

The show, titled “Mr. Flower Fantastic’s Concrete Jungle,” opened February 7 and runs through April 26.

The installations feature scenes familiar to New Yorkers, with a verdant twist. In one, a yellow taxi prepares to go through a car wash. Flowers creep up brownstones and pizza stops. They spell out a tag in an “Orchid Avenue” subway station and fill the dryers inside a laundromat.

“Step into a dazzling floral dreamscape, where street scenes become floral dreams as visionary designer and native New Yorker Mr. Flower Fantastic transforms NYBG’s Enid A. Haupt Conservatory into a breathtaking orchid tribute to the spirit, style, and streetscape of our beloved metropolis,” the garden said in a news release.

Mr. Flower Fantastic is popular on social media for his brand collaborations with companies like Nike, Netflix and Louis Vuitton. A self-taught artist, he rose to prominence with guerrilla-style installations that led some observers to describe him as a street artist.

The New York Botanical Garden exhibit marks his first in which he has created more than a single installation, rebuilding the Big Apple in flowers. And the garden said the show “presents a striking reinterpretation of botanical design.”

“The Orchid Show is a must-see for seasoned orchid enthusiasts and for NYBG newcomers alike,” the garden said. “While immersed in thousands of flowers, visitors learn about orchids in the wild and NYBG’s ongoing worldwide orchid research and conservation."