Springtime in Paris

If you cant be in Paris, you can go to the International Philadelphia Flower Springtime in Paris Show at the New Convention Center and imagine for a few moments that you are there. My Traveling Companion and I chose the most horrible rainy day with impending floods on the Delaware River to make the trek down 95, park and walk from one end of the Convention Center to the other in the pouring rain before anyone would let us in a door. With tickets purchased on line at home, once inside it was fairly easy to gain entry to the show.

Right away it hits you. Paris, you see the arches of the very recognizable Eiffel tower and hear live caberet style music. It is floral and festive and FRENCH. There is a sweet aroma in the air and its crowded when we arrive at about 11am. We made our way through and around the displays admiring them as we went. We shopped the venders and made our selections. TC bought a hummingbird feeder and we both purchased garden gloves. I picked up a few other things and wished I could get more. So much to choose from. Soaps, honeys, dips, candles, garden tools and lot of garden doo dads. I picked up two small cacti for Furm to replace the Old Man Cactus that he just lost this past winter after having it for about 20 years.

I liked the handmade wall art. I saw the same white silk embroidered peacocks I admired at the last flower show still going for $2200. Dang. The Phladelphia Society of Botanical Illustrators had watercolors for sale. Ann Biggs's 19 by 26 Lavender was magnificent and priced at $1000.

I was looking forward to seeing the pressed plants and I was not disappointed. And now at the very end of this writing I realize that I can not give credit to the artist whose work I photographed and wanted to show here because I failed to photograph the artists name along with the work. Grrrrrrr. If I were a judge, I would give this piece of work the prize for best manifestation of Springtime in Paris at the Philadelphia Flower Show. Look at it closely. It is pressed plants making the image of the Arc de Triumph in the distant, ladies of an earlier era in the forground. One is a lady with an umbrella making a purchase from another lady who is a flower vender. Sound familiar. It just doesnt get sweeter than this.