At the Hampton Court Flower Show

It’s my month for gardens: the Barrington Open Gardens, and now the biggest in Britain: the annual fest at Hampton Court Palace.  It takes the better part of a day to explore: acres of show gardens, pavilions, and vendors.  All of the plants are meticulously labeled, beautifully arranged, competitively judged, and all for sale.  I’ve put a selection of images on my Flickr site in addition to these.

   

 

Serious shoppers find their plantings at the show, all collected into Wheelie Boxes.  These are dangerously underfoot in the pavilions, worse than any airport.

 

And, while looking down, I found that it was easy to identify the (over)serious gardeners by their footware.

  

They love to label things, almost to the point of losing the blooms,

 

Among the flowers were sculptures, glass and brass and water,

  

And around them were concept gardens, urban gardens, low-water ‘impact’ gardens, and world gardens.  Here, for example, is the ‘Beer garden’ and the ‘London Riot garden”.