My first visit to Chelsea Flower Show yesterday with my good Aussie friend Sandie.  We had such fun, discovering many similar loves/loathes, catching up with our news and sometimes looking at flowers!  Sadly, we did not have the place to ourselves.

 

 

At times it was difficult to get anywhere near the gardens, especially the small courtyards.  But we got some small peeks, our reward for patience and persistence in weedling our way to the front of the crowd from time to time.

But all the gardens have been well recorded elsewhere, so instead of posting photos of those, I'll stick with a few images which took my fancy when I uploaded them all.  Others can be found on my Flickr page.

 

 

We both loved this stand and I'm now trying to work out how to find a place for a ruin in our garden.

 

 

Somehow, I didn't imagine that corners of a show garden might look like this - remarkably like home.

 

 

I'm not sure if this gentleman had the easiest or the most challenging role in the show.  I'm not sure I could have stood still all day.

 

 

The queue for the Ladies loo was extremely long but moved surprisingly fast.  Not only that, but they were immaculate, offered lovely soap and handcream and friendly staff.  Excellent.

 

 

The Grand Pavilion was huge - far larger than I imagined, whereas the show itself was somewhat smaller than I'd thought.

 

 

I loved this calm, creamy white display created by Zita Elze

 

 

and though I expected to see all kinds of flowers out of season, this display of daffodils was somehow particularly extraordinary.

 

 

Not to mention hyacinths in May - I wonder how they bred the one with a little face?

 

We had a lovely, lovely day and were on our best behaviour the whole time, unlike another couple of ladies who appear to have been put in the naughty corner

 

 

 Never mind.  At least they've got a pretty view!

 

Thank you Sandie (and John) for a marvellous day.  We had such fun.