The Chelsea Flower Show comes to Amboise
Well. Not quite. Not yet, but great oaks (from little acorns grow).
M. Thierry Boutard, the can-do mayor of Amboise had a light bulb moment while looking through his mother’s photographs of the defunct flower festival in Amboise. Why not, he thought, have a go at bringing it back?
That is exactly what he did with the help of friends and colleagues, people who know their business, who curate stunning gardens in Châteaux Amboise, Clos Lucé, Gaillard and the Pagoda.
If he wondered why the tradition died he need look no further than at modern technology. Before people were seduced by mobile phones, tablets, the internet, etc they made their own entertainment.
One cannot deny festivals are hard slogs, a true labour of love but the mayor is right. The timing is right. The hundreds who flocked to his Show (maybe thousands?) prove that people are very interested in the environment, appreciating more than ever the natural world and are looking for something more fulfilling than the box in the corner.
It’s not too fanciful to imagine the Île d'Or (Golden island) hosting a five day Chelsea type Flower Show. After all, the first effort in 1862, called The Great Spring Show was worlds away from today’s grand affair. Held in the RHS* garden, the marquees attracted plant and seed merchants who paid for stands.
The Amboise Spring Show need not be an international event a la Chaumont, local is good, indigenous plants, wild flowers, trees etc., The possibilities are endless. Vegetable, Fruit, Flower, Grass and Hosta Gardens.
A Monastery Herb Garden would be amazing. Before the Revolution, The Golden Island was Saint John’s Island (the ancient church, thankfully, is still with us). So would The Apothecaries Garden**. Given the day’s high temperatures, one garden one day will surely be given over to cactus and succulents.
Congratulations to everyone involved in yesterday’s Show. Mme Isabelle Cahagne aka mademoiselle-paillette and her amazing, moving, ethereal, beautiful stilt walkers were both a treat and an absolute privilege to see.
* Royal Horticultural Society
** That of The Royal College of Physicians' Garden has a thousand medicinal plants. The Chelsea Physic Garden began in the 1600s by Apothecaries to grow their own medicinal plants.
Post by Pamela, photography by Mark.
