Passport to Pimlico

Cletus - the little South Londoner - made his first ever trip North of the River. I took him up to the RHS Flower Show yesterday in his little carrier. Our own Sweet William was the hit of the show.

I don't know if American readers know about Alan Titchmarsh - perhaps one of his gardening makeover show appears on BBC America or Home and Garden. If you're not familiar with Mr Titchmarsh, let's just say he runs a gardening empire. He appears on numerous gardening shows, he is one of the prime time television presenters for the Chelsea Flower Show (yes, there's a week of television coverage for the show), he's written loads on gardening and he's behind a web based nursery Crocus. No doubt he has his very green fingers in other mud pies, too.

At any rate, several people stopped me while at the show to complement me on charming Cletus and to predict that he'd be the next Alan Titchmarsh. I was also advised, by more than one person, that I should drill the boy in the Latin names of the plants. (I'd have to brush up on my own Latin first.) VolMom's old next door neighbors, who were extension agents or worked for the TWRA or some such, used to drill their daughters in the latin names of the flora particularly wildflowers some of them so wild they were weeds in my book. I was always impressed by this ability - so maybe Cletus will have a little Acer palmatum in his future.

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Despite the fact that there is no more room in my garden, I love going to the shows to spot the next horticultural trends. Volunteer gardeners will be excited to learn that orange is in. There were some fabulous crocosmias and echinaceas in stunning bright, golden orange. If I had more room and more sun - I would have bought. I need to get a reliable pocket sized camera to take around with me, too. It's too hard managing baby and photos, sometimes. But those oranges were spectacular.