Chelsea

Last week it was our annual visit to the horticultural event of the year - Chelsea Flower Show. Travel down on train afternoon before, with a good picnic lunch washed down by some nice wine. Quick hop across London to our hotel, where this year we were met by two of our friends who'd had their booking lost by the agency , we ended up with 6 of us in 2 rooms. The room with 4 in was quite cozy! Nice evening stroll through Pimlico down some lovely back streets where we saw evidence of WW2 shelters.

A couple of beers, a visit to the Ale and Pie House, and off to bed reasonabley early, for an early start - we made it to the main gates by about 0815.

That way we get to see the show gardens before the rush. One of my favourites was the M and G Windows Through Time garden which had luscious planting and a ruin that looked like it had been there hundreds of years, not 3 weeks.

Of course I have to mention the Blue Water Garden designed by our very own Professor Nigel Dunnett which was designed to be a sustainable city roof garden and won a well deserved gold medal.

A beautiful garden with a swathe of white cala lilies next to blue irises was the East Village garden - one of my favourites:

Its always interesting to see what flowers are popular, and this year the gardeners had huge problems getting things to bloom because the weather has been so bad. we saw lots of buds, especially of poppies and irises. One flower which had bloomed and was in many gardens was mecanopsis:

and quite surprisingly, cow parsley was there in abundance. Although perhaps not so surprising as you can guarantee it will be out at this time of year.

When we're looking at the gardens, it's nice to imagine what they would be like to have, and a must for me is somewhere to sit and eat, and this was the winning dining area for me:

As well as gardens, there's always a good display of floral arrangements, and this was one of the gold medal winners, quite complex but I quite liked it!

After a coffee and sit down we tend to start on the smaller gardens, of which there are several categories. This year there were Fresh ones, which illustrated more innovative gardening ideas. I liked the Jackson Pollack inspired one which was plated with splashes of colour

and one on a raised platform on a mirror which made it look as though the garden went right underneath.

Chris Beardhsaw's Arthritis research garden was stunning, and we were lucky to catch him in it.

There's always a bit of celebrity spotting goes on!

After a lunch stop, which was wine and fish and chips, there were Artisan gardens to see - more small gardens in a woodland setting. Highlights were a Japansese garden which won best in show for small gardens:

A Hebridean weaver's garden:

A garden call One Stone which had been made from one large stone from a quarry and had some great dry stone walling

And of course, A Yorkshire Garden, representing the start of the Tour de France in Yorkshire next year.

I'm really pleased that it won the People's Award - must have been lots of visitors from Yorkshire voting for it! Nestling in the corner of the garden was the rarest plant in the UK, the slipper orchid. We did wonder how long we'd last if we whipped out a trowel and a bag....

My favourite garden of them all was the one that won Best in Show - the Australian Billabong. Difficult to get good photos of it, but it was fantastic.

So, we had a jug of Pimms, a snip at £22.50, looked round the hundreds of trade stands at things we couldn't afford, and saw the gnomes which has been let into the show for the first time :-)

It was colder than normal, and not quite as colourful because so many flowers were still in bud, but it was still a great day out. Finished off as usual by a meal at St Pancras and a quiet train journey home!

The only thing I haven't mentioned is the Great Pavilion, but that will have to be another post. This one's too long already.