An Italian spread to relish

We love our Italian fantasies, and the producers of the 180-year-old Philadelphia Flower Show are counting on that.

They're hoping that the beauty and romance evoked by this year's theme, "Bella Italia," will help attract 10,000 more visitors than last year - even with the bad economy - to the 2009 Flower Show, which begins its eight-day run Sunday at the Convention Center.

About 240,000, a modern-day average, attended the 2008 show, whose "Jazz It Up" theme was a tribute to New Orleans. While the crowds were enthusiastic about the French Quarter balconies and the kicky brass bands, even Jane Pepper says she wasn't sure everyone had a clear notion of what "jazz it up" meant.

"Some people immediately thought: New Orleans. Others thought, 'What does that mean?' " says Pepper, president since 1985 of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, which produces the show.

"A theme works when people can take the title and get a clear image in their head," she says. "With 'Bella Italia,' well, people can just imagine everything."

We imagine large farms with luscious grapes and olive groves; robusto red wine and pasta; and boisterous families, earth mothers who are amazing cooks, and strong, silent fathers.

And that golden Tuscan sun. Big time.

"And don't forget, we're not rich but we're happy," says Franca Riccardi, filling in the rest.

Riccardi, academic director of the America-Italy Society of Philadelphia, understands the appeal of these stereotypical images, but emphasizes that her native country, like any other, is infinitely more complex.

Imagine a United States of movie stars and cowboys, a place where the child of an African father and a mother from Kansas can grow up to be president . . .

Hey, wait a second. Some images are rooted in reality. Perhaps, then, it's the truth embedded in the fantasies that gives these icons their staying power.

"In Italy, we are two souls, modern and ancient," says Riccardi, who grew up in Busto Arsizio, in the Lombardy region of northern Italy. She still has a city apartment there and a country house near Lake Maggiore that's been in her family for hundreds of years.

"But sometimes," Riccardi adds, "it's difficult even for us to live with two souls."

Her family's vacation home has two big rooms, one atop the other, all made of stone and attached on both sides to other homes, sort of like archetypal South Philly rowhouses.

They were built against the walls of a small castle for protection and support, and each has a small vegetable garden out back for herbs, lettuces, and tomatoes (which, speaking of fantasy, actually are native to the Americas).

Riccardi's modern soul craves larger windows, a taller roof line, and reliable heat for her little country house. But her ancient soul realizes: This place is for the ages.

"I can't do those things to it, and I understand," she says. "That house has been there for a thousand years."

Early on, Riccardi gave the horticultural society her thoughts on an Italian-themed Flower Show, starting with the basics: Italy is more than Rome and Tuscany. In fact, the country has 20 regions, each with its own history, geography, cuisine, and culture.

In Riccardi's region, people eat more rice than pasta because of 200 years of Austrian domination. "And sausage and cabbage and potatoes," she says, sounding positively un-Italian.

So, too, each region has its own garden-design tradition, as do individual cities and towns within those regions, according to John Dixon Hunt, professor of landscape history and theory at the University of Pennsylvania.

"There is no such thing as 'the Italian garden,' " he says, but the Renaissance-era garden of the 15th and 16th centuries is usually considered the classic Italian design.

It may surprise many to learn that "the Italian Renaissance garden was not a matter of flowers and horticulture. It was never designed as a vehicle for flowers," Hunt says.

There were flowers, yes, but the garden was defined more by "the organization of space in an exciting way."

As in: hillside terraces with grottoes underneath, arches, pergolas, fountains, statuary, and two ancient concepts that recently became "new" again - creating garden "rooms" separated by hedges, screens, gates, or fences with "claire-voies," or openings, in them, and mixing flowering plants with "edibles."

But a show is a show, and while it will incorporate many of the elements Hunt describes, "Bella Italia" most certainly will be "a vehicle for flowers."

Its central feature will highlight Roman gardens. Six companion exhibits will illustrate regional gardens in Florence; Lake Maggiore or the northern lake region; Milan; San Remo on the Italian Riviera, known as La Cittá dei Fiori ("City of Flowers"); Tuscany; and Venice.

Riccardi is glad the feature will include some surprises - Venice, for example. "Americans don't usually think of Venetian gardens, but Europeans are wild for them," she says.

San Remo and the lake region will be new to many showgoers, and Milan, too, had to be included. "Milano is the second capital of Italy, like New York and Washington," Riccardi says. "Can you talk about the United States without mentioning those two?"

And speaking of regions, the show's organizers are hoping the Italian theme will be of special interest to the more than 600,000 people of Italian descent in the Philadelphia and South Jersey area - they were counted in the 2007 American Community Survey of the U.S. Census Bureau.

But even if you aren't Italian, there's plenty to appreciate.

Ennes Littrell of Southwest Center City, a showgoer for about 15 years, doesn't particularly care about themes. She goes to buy gardening books and learn about water-wise plants and window boxes.

"One year is sometimes better than another," she says, "but it's always just so refreshing at that time of year to see all those flowers."

The 2009 Philadelphia Flower Show opens to the public Sunday and runs through March 8 at the Convention Center, 12th and Arch Streets.

Proceeds: Benefit Philadelphia Green, the urban-green program of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, which produces the show.

Hours: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sundays; 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. weekdays; 8 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Saturday. Best viewing times are 4 to 9:30 weeknights; the box office closes one hour before the show ends.

Admission: Box-office ticket prices are $28 Sunday; $26 Saturday and Sunday, March 8; $24 weekdays; $13 for children ages 2 to 16. The show offers a family fun pack: $65 for two adults and two children under 16. Advance tickets are $22 for adults, $21.50 for groups of 25 or more, $13 for children 2 to 16. Visitors who get their hands stamped may leave and reenter the same day.

Where to buy tickets: SEPTA ticket outlets (discounts available); AAA Mid-Atlantic; Acme Markets; Clemens Family Markets; Borders Books & Music stores; select PNC Bank branches; local nurseries and florists, and online at www.theflowershow.com. Information: 215-988-8899.

Transportation: SEPTA customers can purchase a Bouquet Pass for unlimited travel on buses, trolleys, subways, and regional rail lines for one day during the show for $9. (Use of the pass is prohibited on a.m. peak-hour regional rail trains and for all travel to and from Trenton.)

Amtrak riders save 20 percent off the best available regular fare for coach travel to Philadelphia through March 10. Call 1-800-872-7245 or book online at www.amtrak.com and refer to fare code V782 when making reservations.

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Virginia A. Smith blogs from the Flower Show at http://philly.com/philly/

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