NEW YORK, NY.- It was Saturday night in the Bronx, and as a lively, colorful crowd sipped vodka cocktails underneath dramatic palm fronds, the word people kept whispering was “phalaenopsis.”

That’s a moth orchid, for the uninitiated, one of the most widely grown varieties in the world. Not to be confused with the dendrobium (cane orchid) or paphiopedilum (slipper orchid), all of which were on display at the New York Botanical Garden’s annual Orchid Show.

The exhibition drew all sorts of New Yorkers, including those with a gift for cultivating plants and those who tend to kill them. Many had clearly been inspired by flowers when getting dressed, and wore floral patterns, hues of rose and violet, and faux blossoms.

“Florals in Fashion” is the theme for this year’s extraordinary display, which is part horticultural spectacle and part fashion show, and runs until April 21. In addition to orchids from around the world, there are elaborate ensembles that three fashion designers created using plant life.

On Friday and Saturday evenings, the garden’s glass-domed conservatory adds music and cocktails.

Danielle Leong, 37, was wrapped in a lilac tulle jacket and a shimmering lilac skirt. A wide-brimmed hat festooned with blooms sat atop her head.

By day, she is a tech executive, she said, but in her time off, she gravitates toward fashion and art. “I used to work in trust and safety — really working with the dark sides of the internet,” she said. “I picked up photography and color and fashion as a way to bring myself out of it.”

But Leong leaves the care of greenery to the professionals: “I cannot keep them alive.”

She was not the only plant killer in the crowd.

Colleen O’Malley, 43, and Richard Hernandez, 45, live together in East Harlem and have carefully prescribed roles for the foliage in their home.

“I murder the plants,” O’Malley said. “He’s the plant daddy.”

Hernandez gushed about his monstera and admitted that he babies all their vegetation. “I sing to the plants. I talk to the plants,” he said. Their plants even have names, “inspired by Greek mythology.”

He was intent on finding a specific orchid in the show, one from his country of origin, the Philippines. “It looks like jade,” he said.

Mingling with the flora assassins were the true green thumbs, like Agatha Isabel, 31, an author whose book, “Houseplant Hookups,” acts as a matchmaking service to help people choose plants to buy or give as gifts.

Isabel is part of a blooming online community of plant lovers, where, she said, she has made true friends. “Yes, I met these people through the love of plants,” she said. “But I love them because they care about the environment, about sustainability. And they’re all about women’s empowerment.”

One of those people, Maria Failla, 34, was snaking through the conservatory in a hothouse-pink suit. She started a podcast, “Growing Joy,” in 2017 after falling in love with cultivating.

“My friends from home didn’t want to talk to me about my tomato plant, but all I wanted to do was talk about my tomato plant,” she said. “So I went online and I found people like Agatha.”

Failla has had success in taking that community offline. “We used to get together once a quarter,” she said. “We’d rotate apartments. We’d bring cuttings of our plants, we’d trade, we’d have brunch.”

Behind her, delicate blooms quivered. There were flowers large and small, in brilliant pink, creamy white, pale lavender and vivid orange. They had names like “surf song,” “lava burst puanani,” “popcorn highland” and “chocolate chip.”

In the gift shop, visitors browsed seeds and departed with live orchids in shopping bags.

Failla was philosophical about orchids. “They’re incredibly resilient,” she said. “They can attach to trees and survive rainstorms. They’re versatile. They’ve been around forever. They adapt to their conditions. I think there’s so many things that you can learn from that.”

Ready to learn (and have fun), Roberta Cohen had arrived with a pink orchid painted around each of her eyes. She was a few hours from her 25th birthday and celebrating with her friend, Kallareyna Estella, 24, who had also painted elaborate eye makeup. The two young women, both Bronx natives, said they were simply excited to be in such a beautiful space. “It’s close to home, but we still get to have fun and be safe,” Estella said.

Sitting by a reflecting pool was Veronica Vera, 77, who smiled as she watched an attendee in an orchid headpiece pose for photos. “It’s really fun to talk to the other visitors because there are people here flaunting their stuff, wearing gorgeous outfits that they’ve made for the occasion,” she said.

And the orchids! “I was just blown away,” said Vera, who confessed that she had no real plants at home: “I only have artificial because I have a pussycat.” It was her first time at the Botanical Garden, and she was enchanted.

“I was just also amazed at just being in the Bronx,” she said. “That was new to me.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.