Hampton Court Flower Show (also my possible Bollywood debut)
The first of several marquees we came to when we got there was full of roses, interspersed with a collection of stage costumes from different productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and all smelled wonderful. There were some especially pretty miniature roses and a David Austin stand that smelled like heaven. After that, I dragged poor Lauren around the RHS marquee, and went a little mad at the stand selling tiny succulents. In the centre of the show was a huge display about growing plants for food in England, with little sections of wheat and sunflower fields, a tiny orchard full of fluffy hens and espaliered apple trees, and several plantings of vegetables outside and in a polytunnel. All the plants in the vegetable plots and polytunnel were in full fruit; the peppers looked especially beautiful, as did the rows of different sorts of cabbage and kale, with gorgeous colours and textures that I couldn’t quite photograph properly. By the end of the day, as the plants were sold off, lots of people were walking around carrying huge sunflowers, like Oscar Wilde, and I saw one man struggling with a huge red pepper plant, covered with fruit, in a pot. Later, I saw what looked like the same plant, apparently abandoned on the tow-path leading to the station.
Total haul for me today was a nice little dark-blue agapanthus, a very nice little goldfish plant (Nematanthus radicans) with very dark leaves, half-a-dozen assorted tiny succulents, three pelargoniums (lemon, a trailing species one with bicoloured flowers and a nice little bright red stellar with variegated leaves) and some stick protectors (things to go on support sticks to stop them going into your eye by accident) shaped like owls and bees. Lauren bought a couple of nice begonias, so I have slips off them, and she has some from my pelars and a promise of succulent cuttings when they get big enough.
I was too knackered to manage the stairs in the tube, so I got the bus home. While I was waiting for the bus at Waterloo, one of those open-topped tourist buses drove past. The top deck was full of Indian musicians, a Cute Couple and a film crew. As it went past, one of them waved, and I waved back, and got filmed, probably because I looked like a stereotypical Eccentric Englishwoman, with my straw hat and bag of plants. I do hope I end up in the film! I finally arrived home around eight, dusty, slightly sunburned (despite factor 50 sunblock, a big floppy hat and a big floppy dress), with oddly hat-shaped hair and a few lingering cactus spines in one arm, and after finishing off the last of yesterday’s gazpacho and raspberries, now I’m almost too tired to go to bed. I am so glad that I don’t have to go to work tomorrow!
A selection of tiny rose bushes
The Bangladeshi Garden, one of the nicer and more established-looking of the smaller gardens. I particularly liked the trellis covered with purple-flowered climbing beans and some sort of gourd.
A not very good picture of the beautiful cabbages etc.
A lot of different sorts of tomatoes in the polytunnel.
Peppers, next to the tomatoes.
The Girl Guides had some sort of competition for plantings in unusual recycled containers.
Another entry from the Girl Guide competition.
A Lego monkey, in the Lego pirate garden, an otherwise unremarkable garden full of hilarious Lego figures.
I have no idea what this was about.
More pictures tomorrow, but now I'm off to bed.
Total haul for me today was a nice little dark-blue agapanthus, a very nice little goldfish plant (Nematanthus radicans) with very dark leaves, half-a-dozen assorted tiny succulents, three pelargoniums (lemon, a trailing species one with bicoloured flowers and a nice little bright red stellar with variegated leaves) and some stick protectors (things to go on support sticks to stop them going into your eye by accident) shaped like owls and bees. Lauren bought a couple of nice begonias, so I have slips off them, and she has some from my pelars and a promise of succulent cuttings when they get big enough.
I was too knackered to manage the stairs in the tube, so I got the bus home. While I was waiting for the bus at Waterloo, one of those open-topped tourist buses drove past. The top deck was full of Indian musicians, a Cute Couple and a film crew. As it went past, one of them waved, and I waved back, and got filmed, probably because I looked like a stereotypical Eccentric Englishwoman, with my straw hat and bag of plants. I do hope I end up in the film! I finally arrived home around eight, dusty, slightly sunburned (despite factor 50 sunblock, a big floppy hat and a big floppy dress), with oddly hat-shaped hair and a few lingering cactus spines in one arm, and after finishing off the last of yesterday’s gazpacho and raspberries, now I’m almost too tired to go to bed. I am so glad that I don’t have to go to work tomorrow!
A selection of tiny rose bushes
The Bangladeshi Garden, one of the nicer and more established-looking of the smaller gardens. I particularly liked the trellis covered with purple-flowered climbing beans and some sort of gourd.
A not very good picture of the beautiful cabbages etc.
A lot of different sorts of tomatoes in the polytunnel.
Peppers, next to the tomatoes.
The Girl Guides had some sort of competition for plantings in unusual recycled containers.
Another entry from the Girl Guide competition.
A Lego monkey, in the Lego pirate garden, an otherwise unremarkable garden full of hilarious Lego figures.
I have no idea what this was about.
More pictures tomorrow, but now I'm off to bed.