SNV30239

SNV30239

Blogging about

I love blogging about... books

Sunday 27 May 2012

Day at the Chelsea Flower Show part 2


The Chelsea flower Show is a great British institution and justifiably so. Ideas, creativity, painstaking hard work and sheer beauty are all celebrated here every year, and everything runs like clockwork.

At least it does when you actually manage to get into the show. On Thursday, I got to Victoria to find utter chaos with the District and Circle Lines not running. So hundreds of us were squashed into  a fleet of crowded double decker buses and we all streamed in with a collective air of excitement.
All apart from one lady who was supposed to meeting her son there...and she'd left her mobile phone at home.He wasn't there...and he was the one with the tickets!

When I say it was busy there, it was heaving in the heat...swarms of people wherever I looked, marching purposefully towards the main show gardens. It was difficult to get any decent photos of the main ones..too many people standing in front of them with heads, hats and other appendages making their way into my photos.



Oh look - a head! This was the best photo I could get of one of my favourite gardens...the l'occitane garden designed by Peter Dowle. A real sense of place here, so atmospheric of southern France with its wafts of heady herb scents....and I wanted to get under the pergola and drink a glass of ice cold  rose wine. Either that or get the cheapest and fastest flight down to Nice....


I did like the Laurent Perrier garden by Arne Maynard too
 And I thought the Lands End  A rural Muse garden was delightful. From Rutland designer Adam Frost and inspired by the poet John Clare. it was an oasis of calm and shade. Again, among a throng of people all eagerly photographing and chattering away,  I wanted to push them aside , hop over the rope and force my way to under the green oak framed shelter.




I didn't get a photo of  of the lovely Doris, the caravan at the Caravan Club garden though. Standing on tiptoe,  craning my neck in the crowd to take one, I was rather close to the woman with the strangulated vowels and lots to say in front. I suddenly shot back in horror...on the crown of her head I saw nits. I kid you not. Nits......I wonder if she knew. All I knew was I wasn't going to be the one to tell her. I stepped away pretty smartish!

Talking of smart...look at this....I was rather taken with this stand...loved the huge zinc planters and water feature - perfect for a town garden. Not that I live in a town, but I did love those planters....




When I came to the conservatories and greenhouses, I was in seventh heaven. .... Spent ages in the Allitex conservatory, and even longer in one of the Hartley Botanical Victorian greenhouses. It's so me! I fell in love with it there and then, and the sales advisor did look at me strangely when I asked if I could take a photo of it, and would he mind getting out of the way.

Isn't it just beautiful? I would live in there.....I've already got the same table and chairs....and can just imagine all my plants on the staging.....


And this sculpture by Christopher Lisney rather took my fancy...and made me smile.....



So many things to see, so many tools, plants and a greenhouse to put on the wish list, and all too soon it was time to leave....not before taking a few moments to admire the perfect symmetry of the Chelsea Hospital



and try not to be distracted by more plants on the



Chelsea Flower Show.....I do love you.....

But today's track is  Songs from a secret garden......beautiful, haunting, a perfect soundtrack for a shady garden at dusk I always think....when twilight can be a time of sadness.....




8 comments:

  1. Wonderful photos - heads or no heads. But nits? Eugh. :(

    I could live in that greenhouse too. Well, maybe not today as it would be too hot but isn't it gorgeous? I love the sculpture too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Glad you enjoyed the photos ... i really fell in love with that greenhouse.
    As for the nits....when I say I jumped back....I was jet propelled...adn thankfully no scratchy head! Honestly, I could wish them on a nicer person....she was so bitchy about the garden....

    ReplyDelete
  3. There may need to be a fight about who will move into the greenhouse . . . and to come home with the statue.

    I wonder if the officials ever find, at the end of the day, there are people tucked away in the gardens; people who have ducked under (or over) the barriers and are now just sitting there, wishing they could stay.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A fight Lucy? Oh no, that greenhouse is mine....I'll let you have the statur though!

      wonder if anyone has stayed in there overnight?I would love to be there first thing in the morning before the hordes came through the gates....that would be magical....

      Delete
  4. Fantastic photos, I have been glued all week to Chelsea on the TV. I've never been but my Father and I keep promising we will take a trip over to it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hello Mum of all trades....I think you should make the trip! The ideas, the inspiration ...it's well worth while....but I always find London takes a bit of getting used to. come over....!
    BTW...glad you like the photos!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think thats the greenhouse that Lesley Pearse bought so you can stop fighting over it.The story got into my Paperli so thats how I know about it.She hasn't put it up yet because of the weather but I'm sure she'll put a photo on twitter when she has. I want my garden to look lik eone of the above but I'm hopeless in the garden.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lesley Pearse has my greenhouse?? What a lucky lady....I really love that !

      Are you really hopeless in the garden? no, I can't believe it......

      Delete