Royals out at Chelsea Flower Show
LONDON, England -- The Chelsea Flower Show is opening to the public in London with nearly 160,000 visitors expected to enjoy its displays.
The show, which features about 50 gardens and more than 100 floral exhibitors, opened its gates Tuesday the day after a host of celebrities and royals visited.
They included the Duke of York and the Countess of Wessex. The countess enjoyed a chat with one old soldier outside a thatched country pub, specially built for the show.
As 88-year-old Wally Offord sipped a pint of beer, Sophie sat by his side in the Chelsea Pensioners' Garden amid rambling roses and fragrant wildflowers.
Offord, a former warrant officer from Littlehampton in southern England, was dressed in his Chelsea Pensioners' scarlet tunic with his medals proudly on display.
Offord, who joined the army in 1932 and took part in the Normandy landings of 1944, later told the Press Association: "She liked the garden, and she said it was very pretty, and I think so too."
Part of the display, which is set in 1945 after the end of World War II, is a "Dig for Victory" vegetable garden -- following one of the emerging themes this year in what has been billed as the "Jamie Oliver influence."
Sophie was joined at the 83rd Chelsea Flower Show by her husband, the Earl of Wessex. Other royals present included the Duke of Gloucester, the Duke of Kent and his daughter Lady Helen Taylor, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent and Princess Alexandra.
The queen, who rarely misses the occasion, was on an official visit to Canada.
The Duchess of Cornwall was carrying out her first solo engagement as a member of the royal family in Southampton while her husband the Prince of Wales was in Anglesey.
Among the celebrities enjoying the garden displays were actor Sir Michael Caine, ex-Beatle Ringo Starr, gardener Monty Don, rocker Rod Stewart and his fiancee Penny Lancaster.
The sell-out show is open every day until Saturday, when many of the exhibitors sell off display plants and products in the afternoon.
