RHS Chelsea flower show 2013 - 7

the seeability show garden’s theme was sight loss and was created to “raise awareness about the effects of visual impairment by expressing specific sight conditions in a conceptual way through design and planting features

the curtain of stainless steel spheres dripping with water and reflecting light represent the blind spots that occur with macular degeneration

the rusty steel structure suggests the loss of peripheral vision experienced with glaucoma”

like many gardens at Chelsea this year the garden had cow parsley as one of its featured plants – almost every garden seemed to have some, it was everywhere both the common-or-garden or the "posh" sort

the common sort of anthriscus sylvestris usually known as cow parsley is also referred to as wild chervil, wild beaked parsley, keck, or queen Anne's lace, it is also sometimes called mother-die, a name that is also applied to the common hawthorn flower – from the superstition that to pick it and bring it into the home would result in the death of one’s mother (similar superstitions apply to lilac, campion, rosebay-willowherb and plantain) it is related to other diverse members of apiaceae, such as parsley, carrot, hemlock and hogweed as it also looks rather like hemlock (conium maculatum), a well known poisonous plant it is easy to imagine why children might be discouraged from gathering it

it is considered to be edible, though having a somewhat unpleasant flavour, sharper than garden chervil, with a hint of carrot and is rumoured to be a natural mosquito repellent when applied directly to the skin

the posh cow parsley seen at the show was anthriscus sylvestris 'Ravenswing'  and is described as ‘an elegant purple form of common cow parsley which has pretty clusters of tiny, creamy-white flowers in late spring and early summer, highlighted by the lacy, deeply cut dark purple foliage’

the even posher sort, orlaya grandiflora (white lace flower) made a number of appearances in the show gardens and in the great pavilion and seemed very popular with the flower- arrangers – probably because they can safely pick it without fear of their mothers dying