Home » Travel » Royal Britain » Maytime in Mayfair - London in Bloom

Maytime in Mayfair - London in Bloom

© Stuart Buchanan MacWatt

Maytime in Mayfair follows hard on Spring in Park Lane. Britain is in bloom and London has its lilac. Newly planted lobelia burgeons blue in floral window boxes on the smart frontages of Regency Belgravia, Victorian Mews pubs in Knightsbridge and Kensington, and the newly yuppy housing rows of Fulham and Balham; witness to the Londoner's frustrated passion for gardening This is the joyful time of year when London is at its most beautiful.

The Royal Parks, once hunting preserves of Bluff King Hal, (when he wasn't hunting the Ladies of his Court), are havens of peace and beauty at any time of year, Right now they are looking particularly colourful, and those Londoners who are lucky enough to work in the West End or Westminster make that extra bit of time on a sunny day to enjoy a walk through Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park or St.James's Park on their way to or from their office, pausing perhaps to enjoy the antics of the tame squirrels, birds that will eat crumbs from your hand and the nesting swans..

My son, who is blessed with the family green finger gene allied to a passion for landscape gardening, now pours the energy and expertise of a latter day Capability Brown into his enclosed London plot and waits impatiently for Member's Days, 23rd and 24th May, at The Chelsea Flower Show. This is the Royal Horticultural Society's gardening highlight of the year, as well as the launch of the London social season. Some 250,000 gardening enthusiasts headed by the Royal Family (green fingers every one of them), will head for the annual Show in the formal gardens of the Chelsea Royal Hospital, which borders the River Thames in the centre of London.

The Chelsea Flower Show is the premier annual showcase for the 195 year old RHS and its members and affiliates. Over 700 growers and gardening specialists will be there to show off their talents in garden landscaping, or introduce their latest hybrids and plant varieties in a landscape of tranquil pools, waterfalls and alpine gardens.. If a rose is to be named for the Queen Mum's centenary, it is here that it will be introduced to the world. As age creeps up upon my own gardening limbs I find myself attracted ever more to the miniatures of Alpine gardening and the Alpine Gardening Society. The Society's oft- awarded exhibit at the Flower Show is my personal favourite, and I make much use of their excellent seed exchange arrangements.

The copyright of the article Maytime in Mayfair - London in Bloom in Royal Britain is owned by . Permission to republish Maytime in Mayfair - London in Bloom in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.