Paris Comes to Philly

March 8th, 2011

I made my annual trek to the Philadelphia Flower Show Monday (one of three this year), and I have to say I like this year’s Paris-themed displays better than most.

The 33-foot-tall replica of the Eiffel Tower’s base is nicely done and surrounded by blooming shrubs and life-sized topiary animals made out of flowers.

I especially liked Burke Brothers’ “Timeless Paris” display of a park with blue-light columns lining a formal rectangular pond – all set in evening light.

Also impressive is Waldor Orchids’ re-creation of a French tissue-culture lab and neighboring greenhouse that’s filled with blooming orchids of all sorts. It was attracting the show’s biggest lines of people.

And maybe this is a guy thing, but I also was fascinated by the E.P. Henry display that featured a pergola-covered outdoor dining area looking out over a pond that has a sheet of water dropping into it from an overhanging wooden arch. At the push of a button, the water shuts off and a movie screen drops down to show video from a pergola-mounted projector. It’s not something I’d actually spring for, but it was very cool nonetheless.

The Philly show is always an eye-popping event, though, especially if you’ve never seen what those landscapers accomplish on top of 10 acres of Pennsylvania Convention Center concrete in a week’s time.

The first visit is always the most memorable, but I never get tired of this show.

My favorite part is the display gardens, but others say they like the pressed-plant artwork, the “HortiCourt” in which amateur growers compete for ribbons for their amazing specimens, and, of course, the Marketplace of 180 vendors.

I’m not a big shopping fan, so I was a bit wary this year to hear about the creeping commercialism that’s going on.

The show’s new leader, Drew Becher, has a ton of changes in mind, and one of them is generating more profit for all involved.

So for the first time this year, you’ll see a few TVs running soft-sell ads for the landscapers. Also new is QVC broadcasting live from the show floor on Thursday, and Kremp’s Florist selling cut flowers in the previously gardens-only right-side section of the show.

I’ll be writing more about this in my Patriot-News garden column this Thursday, but the bottom line I’m hearing is that so far the commercial changes are subtle, not intrusive and understandable.

On the other hand, Monday visitors are telling me they don’t want it to go so far that the show becomes more like a shopping center or a big, live-and-in-person commercial.

Click here to see more photos my wife, Sue, and I took at this year’s show.

More photos and inside info from the show are on the show’s blog http://theflowershowblog.wordpress.com/.

You’ve got until Sunday, March 13, to see “Springtime in Paris” yourself. The show web site is www.theflowershow.com, which also has a link to a web-cam feed mounted on the Eiffel Tower so you can see online what the camera sees.

Otherwise, you’ll have to wait another year to see the 2012 version, which will have a Hawaiian theme.