Budding battle of flower shows

By Mark Shanahan & Paysha Rhone  |  February 20, 2009

The flower show wars are raging. Rhode Island Flower Show producer Maury Ryan has made good on his threat to make his show "the flower show of New England" by mounting his most spectacular landscape exhibition ever. (It runs through Sunday at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence). But organizers of Boston's retooled flower show are poised for a counterattack, expanding the upcoming Blooms! exhibit to several local malls. "The Massachusetts Horticultural Society just signed on . . . to cosponsor a spring flower show at the Mall at Chestnut Hill," announced Peter Sadeck, a designer for the Boston show, who was in Providence recently to check out the competition. "Most of the large-scale exhibits, including A&P Orchids, David Haskell, Jill Nooney will be at Chestnut Hill, but there also will be smaller flower displays at Copley Place and the Atrium Mall." The mall shows will run March 12-22, while the flower-arranging competition segment of Blooms! will be held in the Financial District lobbies of One International Place, 125 High Street, and the InterContinental Boston March 13-15. The financially strapped MassHort canceled the historic New England Spring Flower Show - which last year drew 100,000 visitors to the Bayside Expo Center - after 137 years.

Despite claims to the contrary, money manager and arts promoter Kipton Cronkite is not related to Edgartown summer resident Walter Cronkite, the New York Post reports. The tab says Kipton, a 33-year-old investment relations director, has been passing himself off as a distant relation of the legendary newsman, but is not related to the family at all. "He's no relation whatsoever to Walter," Cronkite's girlfriend, Joanna Simon, told the paper's Page Six gossip column. Simon is an opera singer and the sister of Carly Simon. "So often people come up to us and ask us, and Walter says, 'I have no idea who that is at all.' " Chip Cronkite, the anchor's son, also told the paper he's found no branch to Kipton in the family tree. "I've met Kipton a couple of times and he seemed like a nice fella with an interesting profession." The Post couldn't reach Kipton Cronkite for comment. Our attempts at reaching the Cronkites were also unsuccessful yesterday.

Hey, it's fashion week in New York, and we've been wondering where Kate Bosworth has been hiding. The Cohasset actress was finally snapped at the Diesel Black Gold Fall 2009 show. Of course, the fashionista (below left) got a front-row seat, next to rapper Common, singer Roisin Murphy, and diminu-diva Nicole Ritchie.

Ben Affleck told a crowd at a charity event in LA Wednesday night that he worried people would think he was "just an airhead celebrity" when he got involved with charity work in Africa. "I thought, you know, I don't want to be a dilettante," Affleck said in a speech at the Children Mending Hearts event, according to the Press Association. Affleck has become known for his work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he shot a documentary and served as a special "Nightline" correspondent. Sheryl Crow sang at the event, which was also attended by Andie MacDowell, Joel Madden, Kate Walsh, Marisa Tomei, Alyssa Milano, and Elizabeth Berkeley. Proud wife Jennifer Garner also snuck into watch Ben's speech, but reportedly made a quick break after.

MC Hammer dined at UpStairs on the Square Wednesday night. The rapper was hanging with a group of Harvard students after speaking at the business school. Of course, owner Mary-Catherine Deibel felt compelled to introduce herself to Hammer as "another M.C. . . . somehow, he didn't seem impressed," she told us, in an e-mail.

Globe Correspondent Carol Stocker contributed to this column. Names can be reached at names@globe.com or at 617-929-8253.