London calling - Chelsea's in bloom
Joe Fountain, a former Chelsea Flower Show virgin, has his first experience
"Have you got any Valium?" said the nice man who works at the tube station on Wednesday, as yet another throng of over-60s in lightweight floral dresses and cardies descended from the train and made their way to the exit - where for the whole week, it's been "no Oyster card necessary". It's Chelsea Flower Show week, and chaos reigns as thousands descend upon Sloane Square tube station for the Royal Horticultural Society's annual extravaganza. Outside the station, ticket touts are trying to flog or buy extra tickets, but the ladies - some of them with reluctant husbands in tow - are having none of it. I'd imagine these are not the kind of people who would buy tickets off a man in the street. It's more likely that they would have booked the day the RHS announced that they went on sale.
I've never really been a CFS kind of person. First and foremost - before we talk of age and class, which we won't because there's not enough space here - my knowledge of flora is very limited (though I have to say it has improved over the years, and I can now give a name to the most popular ones) and secondly, I have what would be considered "black" fingers, rather than green ones - since any living plant put in my possession has usually ended up dying of neglect. Not out of cruelty mind - I wouldn't ever consciously harm any living thing - but out of forgetfulness.
Still, that has never stopped me from watching the TV coverage of the event - with Alan Titchmarsh (aka "GOD" - note the capitals - in the world of gardening) and his crew showing highlights of the show, often in the most awful weather conditions. It is fascinating not only because you learn things that you never knew about flowers and plants, but also because it gives one an insight into a particular type of English person that you don't often come across in London. You see, it's not London that comes to the CFS but Middle England. And one never sees much of Middle England in London.
This year - thanks to my job and a Maltese connection - I had my first real CFS experience, with a quick tour of the show on press day, which - apparently - is the best time to visit, since it's at its least crowded. It was - of course - raining, but getting around from one garden to another was relatively easy. "If you come during showtime," said my guide, "the whole place is jam-packed. People have to queue to look at the gardens."
It takes about two-and-a-half weeks to build a garden at the CFS, that's after months of designing the space, growing the plants to perfection, and submitting the design to the RHS for inclusion. When you see some of the stuff on display - even to my ignoramus eye - it becomes clear that two-and-a-half weeks is actually very little time to build what is effectively a complete garden - varying in style from the traditional to the more experimental - from nothing.
My favourites - purely from an aesthetic point of view - were an Italianite garden, courtesy of Fortnum & Masons, that came complete with pale green and gold beehives and that made it to the newspapers earlier on in the week after the RHS refused to allow bees in the hives; a seemingly completely overgrown but precisely planned pretty country garden and a rocky one - which was in fact a "Martian" landscape, as it turned out - that was full of cacti, and prickly pears and fig trees which caused both me and the Maltese connection there to sigh and think of home. It turned out to be the winner of the first prize.
Back out on the streets, local shops celebrate the CFS by decorating their façades with floral displays. This being Chelsea - and therefore quite affluent - the displays can get quite extravagant. There was certainly no money spared at Bamford & Sons, a clothes shop on Sloane Square, with what must surely be thousands of pounds worth of white flowers decorating the façade, with garden chairs on each side of the door making you want to stop and sit and enjoy the sun which has finally decided to show its face, rather than go to work. It's a bit ironic, however, that next to it, sitting on the floor, is the homeless man who has claimed the spot his own for years now.
I've never really been a CFS kind of person. First and foremost - before we talk of age and class, which we won't because there's not enough space here - my knowledge of flora is very limited (though I have to say it has improved over the years, and I can now give a name to the most popular ones) and secondly, I have what would be considered "black" fingers, rather than green ones - since any living plant put in my possession has usually ended up dying of neglect. Not out of cruelty mind - I wouldn't ever consciously harm any living thing - but out of forgetfulness.
Still, that has never stopped me from watching the TV coverage of the event - with Alan Titchmarsh (aka "GOD" - note the capitals - in the world of gardening) and his crew showing highlights of the show, often in the most awful weather conditions. It is fascinating not only because you learn things that you never knew about flowers and plants, but also because it gives one an insight into a particular type of English person that you don't often come across in London. You see, it's not London that comes to the CFS but Middle England. And one never sees much of Middle England in London.
This year - thanks to my job and a Maltese connection - I had my first real CFS experience, with a quick tour of the show on press day, which - apparently - is the best time to visit, since it's at its least crowded. It was - of course - raining, but getting around from one garden to another was relatively easy. "If you come during showtime," said my guide, "the whole place is jam-packed. People have to queue to look at the gardens."
It takes about two-and-a-half weeks to build a garden at the CFS, that's after months of designing the space, growing the plants to perfection, and submitting the design to the RHS for inclusion. When you see some of the stuff on display - even to my ignoramus eye - it becomes clear that two-and-a-half weeks is actually very little time to build what is effectively a complete garden - varying in style from the traditional to the more experimental - from nothing.
My favourites - purely from an aesthetic point of view - were an Italianite garden, courtesy of Fortnum & Masons, that came complete with pale green and gold beehives and that made it to the newspapers earlier on in the week after the RHS refused to allow bees in the hives; a seemingly completely overgrown but precisely planned pretty country garden and a rocky one - which was in fact a "Martian" landscape, as it turned out - that was full of cacti, and prickly pears and fig trees which caused both me and the Maltese connection there to sigh and think of home. It turned out to be the winner of the first prize.
Back out on the streets, local shops celebrate the CFS by decorating their façades with floral displays. This being Chelsea - and therefore quite affluent - the displays can get quite extravagant. There was certainly no money spared at Bamford & Sons, a clothes shop on Sloane Square, with what must surely be thousands of pounds worth of white flowers decorating the façade, with garden chairs on each side of the door making you want to stop and sit and enjoy the sun which has finally decided to show its face, rather than go to work. It's a bit ironic, however, that next to it, sitting on the floor, is the homeless man who has claimed the spot his own for years now.