So after fully exploring the wonders of inside we moved outside to look at the show gardens. Almost immediately I was confronted by this sight. Yes dear readers it is ethnobiologist and herbal fox James Wong (he is the one in the black shirt for the uninitiated), reclining gracefully in his hut/thing in the middle of his Chelsea garden (I have to be truthful at this point and say I didn’t really like the garden, it was pretty much all tree ferns and they have never really done much for me, I’m sure though the design
was fabuous though despite the lack of flowers…). Anyway I made mum stand for a good 10 mins while I just looked longingly from behind the fence, then we went off to find other wonders. My favourite small garden (regular readers of this blog will probably be able to fathom why) was this one, planted with all bee friendly flowers (pay attention Monsieur Wong,
flowers) and with this fab/but quite scary quote from Einstein which is pretty much what the book I’ve just finished reading (a world without bees) is all about. After we had done all the gardens we got down the the serious business of looking
round the stalls. I had by this point already reserved by orchid but if money were no
object I could have quite happily bough a few things like these (yes fake bits of
castle to make it look like you have ruins in your garden. How cool are they? They did look quite realistic so I guess if at some point I have a couple of grand to spare but not the millions required for the castle I could just get this man to build me a replica (kind of defeats the point though doesn’t it?). The other things I was really taken with were the garden ornaments, they had the most beautiful metal trees that were actually fountains, this weeping willow had water trickling all the way down over it’s branches. It was really really pretty and there were loads of them all different types of tree, but the weeping willow was definitely my favourite until we found this. It’s the ringing tree from the story of Hansel and Gretel (where it resides in the garden of the witch). It too had water that ran down and filled up the cups casing them to knock the bells and make ringing noises everytime they were full and tipped to empty. By this time it was quite late on in the day, we had sat out on the lawn in the rain with an umberella eating our lunch and looked round all the different parts. Soon it would be time for the bell to be rung and the mad scramble of people trying to buy the plants you couldn’t put reseves on would start. We were just walking back to pick up my Orchid (walking pas the garden of Wong) and I happened to check to see if he was still there. There was alas no sign of James or any of the others in the garden and that dear readers is because
he was stood by the pathway fishing leaves out. It was at this point I made a noise simular to Mabel when she can see somethng she wants but can’t get to and before I knew what was going on we were beside him, mum asking knowledgeable questions about tree ferns supplied by me (knew that environmental science A level would come in handy at some point) as a prologue to this (I’m aware I look delerious in the photo, I was, the only words I managed were “I think you are awesome”, to be fair however that was an improvement on aggrrhhhhhh so shouldn’t be too harsh). What a fantastic day the TV hightlights (with copious amounts of Alan Tichmarsh) do not do it justice, I would very much recommend going & def go on the last day, watching the sell off (and then the trees and plants walk their way back to the tube) was great fun. Same time again next year? We’ll see…
So after fully exploring the wonders of inside we moved outside to look at the show gardens. Almost immediately I was confronted by this sight. Yes dear readers it is ethnobiologist and herbal fox James Wong (he is the one in the black shirt for the uninitiated), reclining gracefully in his hut/thing in the middle of his Chelsea garden (I have to be truthful at this point and say I didn’t really like the garden, it was pretty much all tree ferns and they have never really done much for me, I’m sure though the design 
was fabuous though despite the lack of flowers…). Anyway I made mum stand for a good 10 mins while I just looked longingly from behind the fence, then we went off to find other wonders. My favourite small garden (regular readers of this blog will probably be able to fathom why) was this one, planted with all bee friendly flowers (pay attention Monsieur Wong, flowers) and with this fab/but quite scary quote from Einstein which is pretty much what the book I’ve just finished reading (a world without bees) is all about. After we had done all the gardens we got down the the serious business of looking 
round the stalls. I had by this point already reserved by orchid but if money were no 
object I could have quite happily bough a few things like these (yes fake bits of
castle to make it look like you have ruins in your garden. How cool are they? They did look quite realistic so I guess if at some point I have a couple of grand to spare but not the millions required for the castle I could just get this man to build me a replica (kind of defeats the point though doesn’t it?). The other things I was really taken with were the garden ornaments, they had the most beautiful metal trees that were actually fountains, this weeping willow had water trickling all the way down over it’s branches. It was really really pretty and there were loads of them all different types of tree, but the weeping willow was definitely my favourite until we found this. It’s the ringing tree from the story of Hansel and Gretel (where it resides in the garden of the witch). It too had water that ran down and filled up the cups casing them to knock the bells and make ringing noises everytime they were full and tipped to empty. By this time it was quite late on in the day, we had sat out on the lawn in the rain with an umberella eating our lunch and looked round all the different parts. Soon it would be time for the bell to be rung and the mad scramble of people trying to buy the plants you couldn’t put reseves on would start. We were just walking back to pick up my Orchid (walking pas the garden of Wong) and I happened to check to see if he was still there. There was alas no sign of James or any of the others in the garden and that dear readers is because
he was stood by the pathway fishing leaves out. It was at this point I made a noise simular to Mabel when she can see somethng she wants but can’t get to and before I knew what was going on we were beside him, mum asking knowledgeable questions about tree ferns supplied by me (knew that environmental science A level would come in handy at some point) as a prologue to this (I’m aware I look delerious in the photo, I was, the only words I managed were “I think you are awesome”, to be fair however that was an improvement on aggrrhhhhhh so shouldn’t be too harsh). What a fantastic day the TV hightlights (with copious amounts of Alan Tichmarsh) do not do it justice, I would very much recommend going & def go on the last day, watching the sell off (and then the trees and plants walk their way back to the tube) was great fun. Same time again next year? We’ll see…