Chelsea Flower Show

May 28, 2011
It's Saturday morning and we are in Richmond, a suburb of London with an interesting town centre on several streets that go off in all sorts of several different directions.
Thursday morning, after doing laundry in Glastonbury, we drove across southern England towards London. On the way we passed by Stonehenge. Stonehenge is this ancient rock formation that was used as either or both a center of worship and a way to keep time. Historians have not been able to adequately explain how these huge stones, several tons or more, were moved to where they are or how they were lifted up to sit on top of each other. We have been by this site many times and never cease to be amazed by it, even in a "drive by" like Thursday. We also took time on Thursday to drive into Guildford. We lived in Guildford in 1986-1987 while Tim was doing his sabbatical at the University of Surrey. We went by the house we lived in, the shops in Onslow Village we shopped in and the schools that Jil and Jeff attended. Much was the same but, of course, much had also changed. That is life. The afternoon was spent at the Royal Horticultural Society Gardens at Wisley. These gardens are the "holy grail" of gardens in England. Lynda was a member of RHS and spent much time here during our sabbatical year. The flowers were a week or so farther along than the other gardens we have visited so there wasn't much in bloom. Still, it is good to visit favorite old haunts.
Friday morning Lynda did what the British call a "lie in". We call it "sleeping in". She was saving her energy for the big event of the day: The Chelsea Flower Show. You may recall that earlier in our trip we tried on two occasions to visit the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea without success. Well, before going to the flower show we tried once more to get into this Gallery. This time we were successful. It was an interesting experience. There were 15 rooms of art, 14 of which were quite bizarre. The enclosed picture is of one of the least bizarre sculptures that we saw. The 15th room was a piece of art we won't even begin to try to describe other than to say it was fascinating. We visited this room twice before leaving the Gallery.
Now on to the Chelsea Flower Show. This show is not the biggest flower show in England but it is the most famous and most important show. It sells out every year and the Queen always visits it the day before it opens to the public. We were only able to get tickets for a 2 and half hour block of time at the end of the day. We got there early and were fortunate enough to get in an hour earlier than our tickets called for. The Chelsea Flower Show takes place on the grounds of the Royal Chelsea Hospital which is, in fact, a pensioners home for old soldiers. There were 17 gardens, 66 feet by 30 feet, and another 19 smaller gardens on display. The 17 large gardens were sponsored by businesses or in some cases towns who hired world famous garden designers to create a garden that would hopefully win a gold medal. Prince Albert of Monaco spent three years working with a designer for the garden he had in the show. Think Rose Bowl parade and how designers are hired to create the floats. It is the same principal. The 19 smaller gardens were similar to smaller floats in the Rose Parade; not as spectacular as the large "showpiece" gardens but still absolutely beautiful. In addition to the display gardens, there were almost 600 exhibitors on hand with booths offering just about anything the gardener would want. Inside a large pavilion were displays by probably 50 or more nurseries from around England, each display featuring different flowers. These were the creme della creme of the flowers of each species. And they were unbelievable. One booth featured the 2011 Chelsea Flower Show flower of the year. This years winner was an anenome, a small container plant that was stunning in its simplicity. As we went through these displays of flowers we made check lists of specific plants that we would like to add to our garden at home. Tim may never play golf again! We were on our feet the entire 3 and half hours we were there but were thrilled to have been able to go.
Today we are headed east towards Canterbury and a visit to the Canterbury Cathedral. Join us tomorrow for "Canterbury Tales"!