But not this year.

The owner of Haddonfield Floral Co., whose exhibits have won awards every year since he entered the Flower Show as a novice in 2005, has more pressing concerns in 2008: Come summer, Second Lt. Douglas Warren Janszky will ship out to Iraq for a year with the Army National Guard's 42d Infantry Division, based in Burlington County. No time to prepare for a Flower Show exhibit.

He enlisted in the National Guard. And while this Salem County native with degrees in psychology and business administration might have pressed for a less dangerous assignment, he volunteered for combat.

"I recognize how irrational my decision, this late in life, strikes some people," said Janszky, 36, "but there's a war on, and this is the path I've chosen. I believe in what we're doing over there."

While his floral designer will run the shop in his absence, Janszky will be missed at the Flower Show, which opens today.

"We were all sad when he told us he won't be here, but we're full of admiration for his decision to do what he believes is right," said Jane G. Pepper, president of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, which produces the show.

Janszky's choice may be unusual among his horticultural peers. But his is not the only example of war trumping the Flower Show, which has been a fixture in Philadelphia more or less since 1829.

There was no show in 1918, for example, the year after the United States entered World War I, and none from 1943 to 1946 because of fuel rationing during World War II and a shortage of manpower to run the greenhouses that supplied the plants, said Adam Levine, author with Raymond Rogers and Edward Lindemann of The Philadelphia Flower Show: Celebrating 175 Years.

As reported in the Evening Bulletin on March 2, 1943, Levine said, the Commercial Museum in West Philadelphia - where the show had been held, predating the old Civic Center on the site - had been turned over to the Army. Officials also worried about large crowds and possible blackouts.

"Every big flower show in the East was called off for 1943," Levine said.

In 2008, war prevents the participation of Janszky, who began his floral career knowing nothing about plants and little about cut flowers. He knew a lot about making the most of opportunities.

In 2001, after getting his master's in business administration from Rutgers University, he counted on "landing a fancy corporate job." First job interview - Lockheed Martin - was set for Sept. 12, but the 9/11 attacks iced that and many others.

While he figured out what to do, he took a part-time job delivering flowers. When Haddonfield Floral Co., at 31 Kings Highway E., went on the market, Janszky bought it in early 2003.

In one form or another, the business had been in Haddonfield since 1877, but success was not assured. When flowers are sold online, through toll-free numbers, and in every supermarket and convenience store, small bricks-and-mortar shops struggle for customers.

"The job offers just weren't there at that time, so as risky as I perceived it to be, I thought I should pull the trigger," Janszky said.

Almost immediately, he began making inquiries at the Horticultural Society about helping with the 2005 Flower Show. He so impressed the organizers that, despite being a newbie, he wound up with an invitation to exhibit in one of the show's smaller spaces.

"A lot of people aren't ready for the commitment that requires," Janszky said, "but the enthusiasm that goes with an invitation like that was all we needed to push forward."

That first year, Haddonfield Floral Co.'s "Revolutionary Haddonfield" exhibit won best achievement for interpretation of a historic theme. In 2006, Janszky's "Haddonfield's Spring Has Sprung" won for creative floral design, and for last year's Irish-themed show, his "Bhrighde (Bridgid)" won for most dynamic use of green and white.

At 6-foot-3, 210 pounds, this former high school and college baseball and football player towers over most of his Flower Show competition. But his talk of enthusiasm, commitment and pushing forward doesn't apply just to horticulture.

That's also how he explains his long-standing interest in the military and his decision to seek out the National Guard - and combat, and airborne school, and, when he returns from Iraq, Ranger school.

"It's a great privilege to have these opportunities," said the single Janszky, a direct speaker with a fondness for Chopin and Civil War history.

"For some people," he added, "patriotism was a reaction to 9/11. But my family has always been that way."

So it came as no surprise to Janszky's parents, Charles and Katharyne of Pittsgrove, N.J., that D.W. - a nickname that stuck in college - finally signed up. He had been wanting to for years.

"My wife is a little upset, but I know exactly where he's coming from," said Charles Janszky, a Marine veteran who owned a camera shop for 24 years before retiring. "You're not going to tell him not to do something. He's an adult. I think it's courageous."

Charles Janszky described his younger son, still called Doug at home, as extremely ambitious and competitive, someone who is "totally intense all the time, even when he was a little kid."

Example: During kindergarten, he begged Dad to prep him for five field-day events at school. The two practiced softball throws and running for hours in the backyard, and the next day young Doug won four events. In the fifth, the three-legged race, his partner tripped.

"Doug picked him up, and they came in third," his father said, laughing. "Imagine. That was kindergarten."