I left the conference in order to see Mat Collishaw’s exhibition in the Royal Botanical Garden, which I have never seen before: still a working botanical garden, well-kept, sandwiched between the Prado and Atocha Station, pretty much as originally laid out by Francesco Sabatini and Juan de Villanueva, on Linnaean principles, in 1781:-
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
Lovely images but how sad that the box hedges seem, like everywhere else, to have been struck by box blight or the nasty worm.
Yes, I wondered. Certainly not for want of care. I’ve never seen so many gardeners. Charles