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Friday May 23, 2014
Chelsea
I was lucky enough to be able to accompany Jennie to the Chelsea Flower Show. There was so much to see it's hard to choose pictures to show from all that I took - and also it is hard to take good pictures of the gardens unless you are a professional photographer.
I saw a lot of the gardens on TV before we went, and was very interested in the Birmingham City Council Parks entry, which focussed on a WWI memorial garden including a highly stylised representation of a (rather floral) trench - but I loved the fountains made from giant whistles, and this old bicycle (the like of which I hope to recreate in my own garden as a rather smaller project).
The Beatrix Potter garden was delightful and deservedly got an award - unfortunately they decided to go with slightly over-sized plastic versions of Peter Rabbit among the vegetation - a hit with the kids but not with me. I loved the more restrained reference to Peter with his little blue jacket as a scarecrow among the climbing beans.
Alan Titchmarsh produced a very clever garden, but it was more representational than one that you would like to just teleport to your own back yard. I did love the garden designed by Patrick Collins as a celebration of St George's Hospital's Neonatal Unit. Not too sure about the representational aspects of the journey of life but it was a lovely garden.
There were a huge number of retail outlets - I bought George a garden thermometer. We also ran across these wonderful sculptures of giant frogs (not obvious in the picture but larger than human sized...).
Last time I went to Chelsea was in the 1970s, and I don't remember it that well except some vague idea it was very crowded. This time it did not feel so very crowded - and I wonder if that's because we are generally more used to large events being impossibly seething with people these days.
So all in all a very pleasant day.
Posted by Christina at 4:01 PM. Category: Days Out
