Philly Does What 'Brownie' Couldn't

This year's 179th Philadelphia Flower Show, the nation's largest, looks to New Orleans for its inspiration and theme, "Jazz It Up!" Beginning March 2, Philly's convention center will be turned into a floral landscape featuring a French Quarter and bayou to celebrate flora of the Crescent City. But it's back at the New Orleans Botanical Garden, slammed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, where the City of Brotherly Love's impact is really being felt. Where the federal government and former Federal Emergency Management Agency head Michael Brown failed, the Philadelphia Society of Botanical Illustrators--a flower show staple--has come to the rescue. In one of the more interesting stories out of the Philly show, the illustrators raised enough money selling small prints of their artwork to provide $2,000 in orchids to the New Orleans orchid garden devastated by Katrina. "It made us feel wonderful," said Fran Phaneuf, a former Illustrators president.

By Paul Bedard