ditto to what Sue said !

This is related to Mike's latest photos: another group of rose photos from this year's Chelsea Flower Show in a Russian blog I follow. The names of the roses are in English.

http://adesigna.livejournal.co...

Ohhh, more gorgeous shots to be jealous of!

Here's the page with links to all of her Chelsea pictures.

http://adesigna.livejournal.co...

That link looks peculiar, but here's the one for the David Austin roses.

http://adesigna.livejournal.co...

She has photos of the 2012 and 2011 shows too. You can find links at the bottom of these pages above the tags.

So many roses with lovely ruffled petals!

I don't have hardly anything actually *open* A few buds here & there, but now we've got an extreme heatwave hitting us and everything's wilting bad. My spring flush was just flushed down the toilet. LOLLL But, when it's over 100degs, I don't really call that spring.

Some of the minis are getting ready.

Vista


Winter Magic (slightly out of focus)


Hot Kiss


Rise N Shine


Ring of Fire


a Walmart no-name mini.. one of those "Parade" roses. I just call it Pink Mini


Pandemonia isn't in my minibed, but it's a mini


Austrian Copper is more red than orange this year.. probably the heat already. And it's showing more yellow blooms?


Theresa Bugnet looks so good against my new house color..


Charles de Mills is blooming only at ground level for some reason. No idea. He has canes over 5' tall, but no blooms. This fall, I *have* to move him. He's too thorny where he's at.


In the pond area, a couple of roses are blooming. Here's Purple Tiger


Singin' the Blues is open as well


George Burns is sooo pretty...


One of my Blue Girls is gonna open soon!


Caught these pictures of a honey bee checking out one of my tradescantia Concord Grape


And my irises are, I think, starting their final flush.

Dante's Inferno (orange on left) and Dreaming of Rio


I *think* this is Neptune's Cloak.. but I definitely could be wrong.


China Dragon (Orange) & Warrior King (red.. really outta focus)

Wow, Toni! Your roses are about to be glorious!

Zuzu, her photographs and perspectives are very good! When I was there, it was pouring rain, with heavy winds, and temperatures in the low 50's, so everyone came inside to the Grand Pavilion to get out of the rain for most of the day. It was unbelievably crowded, and very hard to maneuver around some of the displays.

However, that being said, I did walk around in the rain to see the outdoor garden installations, and was severely disappointed to discover that they did not begin to have the same creativity or complexity I saw in 2008. I kept walking around and around, thinking I had missed a turn off into some area of the grounds I had overlooked. Eventually, when I checked the map of the show, I confirmed that I had not missed anything.

I heard later that week that others had the same opinion - that this year's show just wasn't as good as previous shows. At $120 per ticket, I felt downright cheated. It's a shame, because this was the 100th anniversary. But perhaps the economy has something to do with it. When I was there in 2008, the world economy hadn't bottomed out yet, so perhaps the sponsors were more flush with cash back then, and gave the garden designers more to work with.

(Here's the link to the 2008 show I put up on my site: http://www.lens-work.com/lens-...)

Mike, I love that link. I'm so intrigued by the red sculpture in #52 of the garden installations. Was it glass or lucite?

http://www.lens-work.com/lens-...

And, of course, by the wonderful lizard in #28.

http://www.lens-work.com/lens-...

I also would have expected the 100th anniversary to be the best show ever and would have been sorely disappointed that it wasn't.

Even though I knew it was a million-to-one shot, I still kept looking for you among the people in the Russian woman's photographs.

I'm glad you like that link. I still enjoy going back and perusing those pictures, five years on.

Regarding the red sculpture, my guess is lucite, though I don't know.

I've often wished I could have had that lizard sculpture. So imaginative.

Hopefully the Russian visitor was there on a nicer day when the weather was more cooperative; although it doesn't look like she took many outdoor photos. The temperatures were unseasonably cool that entire week (if there is such a thing as "unseasonable" in England - the weather is never very reliable).

Wonderful pictures! How large is the whole display area?

The entire show is spread out over 11 acres, with the Floral Marquee as the centerpiece under the grand pavilion, which is the size of multiple football fields. The show attracts over 150,000 visitors each year. It really is quite spectacular (most years, anyway). I think some of this year's garden designs tended toward modernist minimalism, which isn't really my cup of tea. I can appreciate it, but I don't find it very engaging. It could be my mood and attention span were hampered by the lousy weather, but I think I would have found this year's show lacking, even if it had been sunny and 70 degrees instead of raining with cold temperatures.

Mike, Neil Muir found it lacking, too, so I think it was the show.

Oh, my, you're right, Debra. I see he refers to it as "the worst Chelsea Flower Show ever." Since I've only been to two of them, I don't have much of a standard for comparison, but he'll get no argument from me.

Fortunately, my own rose garden is in its first full bloom this week. Just about everything made it through the winter and is putting on quite a show this spring.

Debra and Mike, where did you see Neil's comment?

Here: http://garden.org/thread/view_...

Thanks, Mike. I should have guessed it would be in that forum.

Circus roses and foxgloves in the front garden this afternoon...

Wow, gor-ge-ous! Please please add them to the database!