The ground forces went to battle at the Chelsea Flower Show, but some had an unfair advantage, writes Jane Powers in Chelsea.
By the time that most British of events, the Chelsea Flower Show, closes its gates this evening, 157,000 sore-footed visitors will have tramped the tarred roads and temporary plastic paths between the exhibits. They will have poured through the Great Pavilion, marvelling at the impeccably-presented nursery stands, flower club stalls and educational exhibits; and they will have wandered amongst the trade stands, examining the shiny new ride-on lawn mowers, leather gardening gloves and the thousands of other products.
But most of all, they will have been standing around outside, gawking at the fantasy gardens.
The largest of these are the 19 "show gardens", which for this single week in May represent a transitory confluence of whiz-bang garden design and pots of money. The final reckoning for some gardens can be £500,000 or more.
Along the Main Avenue the creations of the big boys of design are lined up (no big girls this year, but a few medium-sized ones). Among the lads are Terence Conran, Tom Stuart-Smith, Christopher Bradley-Hole and Ireland's Diarmuid Gavin.
Gavin's garden is a rolling landscape of clipped box balls and lavender, into which nestle several pods or cocoons - womblike structures that are a recurring theme in the Dubliner's designs.
As anyone who listens to RTÉ morning-time radio knows, it was built with the help of volunteers, recruited from the hundreds of hopefuls who contacted the Marian Finucane show. The 15 lucky winners had the experience of a lifetime - and did a great job.
But what Marian Finucane's listeners didn't know was that another Irish show garden was also being built at Chelsea. Elma Fenton's ambitious Moat and Castle eco-garden - with a swimming pool naturally purified by plants - was also looking for volunteer labour. And sponsorship.
Now, it's not often that Irish designers compete with the big hitters at the world's most prestigious flower show. As far as I know, only a couple of Irish designers besides Gavin have ever had show gardens at Chelsea ("show" being the all-important adjective, denoting the large, prominent plots).
But until the week of Chelsea, those three magic words - "another Irish garden" - were not uttered on RTÉ Radio between 9 and 10am. What a shame that some of the spare buckets of goodwill that washed over Gavin's enterprise were not allowed to trickle down to Fenton's effort. In the end, she found her volunteers and found her sponsors, and made a fine garden. But not without a struggle. An unfair struggle, perhaps.
Yet the Chelsea Flower Show - like all events where medals, money and reputations are at stake - is never fair. Take the entry that won "Best Show Garden", the top accolade of the entire event. Designed by the dependable and safe Julian Dowle, the Chelsea Pensioners' Garden symbolised "a soldier's dream of Blighty" during the second World War. Its thatched pub, duck pond, vegetable patch, rambling roses and overgrown village green (improbably sprouting a rash of red poppies) were heavy with patriotic sentiment.
The Chelsea pensioners themselves (veterans of the second World War) had grown the vegetables in the "Dig for Victory" garden, and all during press day they sat in their bright-red dress uniforms outside the weeny pub, their poignant presence upping the ante on the other gardens.
Yet the garden's publicity machine saved until last its biggest weapon in the war of the medals. At 11.15am on press day (which is also the final judging day), a major offensive was launched on the press, the judges and the other contestants - in the form of 88-year-old Dame Vera Lynn.
The wartime songstress was joined by young singer Katherine Jenkins ("tipped as the next forces sweetheart") who bombarded the masses with Vera Lynn's most famous wartime anthem, We'll Meet Again.
By the time Jenkins came to the final "and I know we'll meet again some suuuuuny daaaaaay", everyone had joined in: the old soldiers on display, Dame Vera Lynn herself, the pinstripe-suited toffs hovering on the perimeter, and even - I'm embarrassed to admit - this cynical anti-war reporter.
And that was how the wrong garden won. But in this, the 60th year after the end of the war, it was never going to be any different.