KEY POINTS:
LONDON - The world's most famous flower show burst into bloom on Monday with painter Vincent Van Gogh and rock star Iggy Pop inspiring garden designs at Chelsea, high society's launchpad for a hectic summer season.
The "Olympics of Gardening" where competition for a coveted gold medal is
intense, attracts gardeners from as far afield as Australia and The Caribbean.
The Chelsea Flower show gives Britain's two billion pound gardening industry a welcome annual boost and sets socialites off on the road to Royal Ascot races and Wimbledon tennis.
"This is the show that represents horticulture worldwide and it's an essential stop on the social circuit," said garden designer Chris Beardshaw as he put the finishing touches to his show garden under squally London skies.
The four-day show, held in elegant showgrounds on the banks of the River Thames, attracts an eclectic mix of celebrities on the opening press day. The reporters are then herded out so the Queen can tour the exhibits in regal solitude.
Chelsea, where socialites quaff up to 6,500 bottles of champagne and 5,000 lobsters in a week of hedonistic excess, attracts an unlikely mixture of green-fingered enthusiasts.
TV chatshow host Michael Parkinson posed proudly with the specially grown "Parky" rose. "I have had a rhinoceros, a Yorkshire terrier and a racehorse named after me. This is my first rose," he said, coquettishly putting it behind his ear.
Designer Angus Thompson took as his inspiration "godfather of punk" Iggy Pop's hit song Lust for Life with fountains spurting out water to the song's beat.
The outrageous singer, an unlikely role model for a garden design, has in the past writhed in peanut butter on stage and smeared his torso with raw meat.
He is not the first pop star to be enticed by the cachet of Chelsea -- Rod Stewart and former Beatle Ringo Starr have been past enthusiastic visitors.
Art was a constant theme running through Chelsea 2007 with gardens inspired by the modernist works of Mondrian and Van Gogh's Provencal garden.
"The gardens at Chelsea this year show art in the garden can manifest itself in many ways and can work in large spaces or intimate urban settings," said show manager Alex Baulkwill.
And gardeners were encouraged to go green in every sense of the word with environmentally friendly gardens with built-in water butts and recycled driftwood adorning the beds.
- REUTERS