Wilfreta Baugh of Elkins Park was highlighted by The Philadelphia Inquirer in an article titled “A ‘50-year love affair’ with creating floral art“.

According to the story, Baugh’s foray into the Philadelphia Flower Show came in 1974. She walked away with a blue ribbon and “best of show” for her entry.

A retired physician, Baugh has since won numerous awards at the annual Flower Show and continues to design floral arrangements and teach others her techniques out of her Elkins Park home, which she purchased in 1993. She has also competed in two World Association Flower Shows, according to The Philadelphia Tribune’s 2015 article honoring her retirement from medicine.

Baugh will not compete at this year’s Philadelphia Flower Show due to responsibilities as a Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (which sponsors the event) member and serving as chair of the Flower Show and Events Committee, The Inquirer said.

From her PHS biography:

Wilfreta has exhibited at the Philadelphia Flower Show yearly (encompassing medical school, residency, and practice) from 1974 until 2018, has exhibited at WAFA and other national shows, and has placed interpretive designs in a few museums. She joined the PHS Board in January of 2021. She is also a volunteer at Emlen School, where she initially tutored reading and math and later served as an artistic mentor to the art teacher on pressed plant pictures. Dr. Baugh taught Mathematics and served as Department Chair at Cooke Junior High School, a Philadelphia public school. She completed her undergraduate studies at Hampton University with a major in Chemistry and minor in Math, completed graduate school at Penn State with a major in Meteorology, completed medical school at Jefferson Medical College, and residency at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Internal Medicine. She practiced medicine from 1981-2013. Dr. Baugh is a mother of two, grandmother of seven, and a great-grandmother to be.

The 2025 Philadelphia Flower Show is themed “Gardens of Tomorrow” and will take place at the Philadelphia Convention Center from March 1 to 9.

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Photo: PHS