Chelsea's Hundredth - you couldn't miss it.
Press Day is also VIP Guest Day. Drawback? Your interview's interrupted by self-important Americans. But what is Chelsea without celebs? If I'd walked faster I might have treated you to Helen Mirren; everywhere I went I'd only just missed her. Still, I found Mary Berry, hiding behind a tree.
Wonder what she thought of Sparsholt College's cupcakes? (Teavolution won silver-gilt.)
And Joanna Lumley was the trouper we've come to expect. She's quite keen on gardening too.
On Burncoose Nursery's stand (silver-gilt), they told me the lovely Jo had been there for hours, with only a break for coffee. But who was she supporting? There have been lots of pictures but not many details. How annoying is that for the stand-holder? (She was on the M&S stand; it won silver.)
Outside, Johnny Kingdom hammed it up on a vibrant driftwood sculpture by James Doran-Webb (pictured left). Johnny was behind at The Winning Post, two galloping horses for £28,000, already snapped up by one of the gardens' sponsors.
Whew! You end up walking a lot, but seats don't feature at Chelsea. Surely they can't want us to sit only where we have to buy food? Wellywoman, on her first visit, has been shocked at the prices, but I've been stung before - so I bought a sandwich from M&S before I arrived.
Where to eat it? (The Press Tent was no answer. It burst at the seams all day.) But here was a tempting resting place...
With plenty to read to pass the time:
It was Birmingham City Council's gold-winning Enlightenment. Alternative Eden shows more of the Great Pavilion but I was off to look for gnomes. (After all, they've gained worldwide coverage.)
Those pesky little creatures need putting in their place.
Charles Hawes feared for their lives at times but the jolly chap pictured below was safe in a four-year research project into grassless lawns. That sounded boring. "What's its name?" asked a reporter instead.
And let's not forget all the work that went into getting Chelsea ready. Opposite the gold-winning Trailfinders Australian garden that Vegplotting particularly liked, was a regiment of wheelbarrows - surely too clean!
Don't forget, there's still time to bid for Mark Quinn's sculpture. "“Hopefully, the flowers and the sculpture blend," he says in an interview. Will the sculpture be diminished without the planting?
And - did I mention? - Chelsea's 100.
...Landscape Juice Network
I used to walk past King's Heath Park every day (the main training place for Brum's Parks department) on the way to school at the time in the morning when everyone came trundling out with their wheelbarrows.
I now regret that that daily influence didn't take off until much later in life.
A nicely done round up Helen - HOW on earth did I miss Sparsholt's cupcakes?
Posted by: VP | Friday, 24 May 2013 at 11:00 AM