At Chelsea, Pimm's and Flowers Start the Summer

Like many an affluent, professional immigrant to the UK, I confess to being completely captivated by the social phenomenon known as "The Season". It's often said that the Brits do tradition better than anyone, and this seems particularly true of the round of blockbuster social events that mark the summer calendar.

American summer (and the ability to wear white shoes without ridicule) is generally bracketed by Memorial Day and Labour Day. In Britain, especially amongst the upper middle classes who first kicked off these traditions at the end of the Victorian era, summer starts with your first Pimm's Cup while perusing show gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show. It stretches through Ascot, Wimbledon, Cartier Polo, the Henley Regatta, Cowes Week and countless country house concerts and open air operas until "the glorious twelfth", when everyone retreats to Scotland at the opening of grouse season, gun dogs in tow, to shoot things on the moors.

At least that's the myth. The truth is that these events haven't been exclusive to stereotypes from Merchant Ivory films for a very long time. If they were, of course, how would we tradition-loving foreigners get in? The best places at almost all of the events of The Season these days belong to either corporate sponsors or Russian Oligarchs. If I attend any more events on the calendar I'll probably be the guest of a big company rather than a of some floppy-haired Englishman in a straw boater. (More's the pity.)

"The truth is that these events haven't been exclusive to stereotypes from Merchant Ivory films for a very long time."

Chelsea is, however, still a bit different. While there is a big corporate presence, it's separated from the main event by time. The great and the good get an advanced preview the Monday night before the show opens. Royal Horticultural Society members have exclusive access on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by the general public for the rest of the week. This means that, though crowded, the paths of the world's most famous flower show are still filled with keen gardeners taking notes, rather than partying executives taking access for granted.

Which brings me to last week, when I wandered and marvelled at magical show gardens and eye popping floral displays with the requisite gin-based cocktail (the aforementioned Pimm's) in one hand and notebook in the other.

It was one of the best shows I can remember. The judges agreed, granting more gold medals than they have for years. Other than a wide propensity for iris, the displays were remarkably different. Traditionalists could revel in a copy of Hidcote, modernists in an imagined Martian garden, historians in a Roman scent garden. The large show gardens attract the comment, but it's the smaller spaces that draw the notebooks and cameras. And it's in the small gardens that most of us find ideas we're likely to copy in our more humble spaces.

The Fortnum & Mason garden celebrated the store's 300th anniversary

Most, but not all. I was dumbstruck by the Fortnum & Mason garden, which was at least six times the size of my tiny courtyard at home, yet left me imagining how I might recreate its spirit in miniature. It was dominated by an ivy-covered wall at its end; precisely the main feature at my house. Of course, it's unlikely that I can manage to squeeze in the shell-encrusted grottos, beehives, herbacious borders, box-surrounded fountains and grid of paths into my postage stamp. But the ideas have been sparked. That, after all, is the point of the show.