EVEN

Chelsea flowers are not immune to the rising tide of lawlessness in the capital.

Acclaimed shoe designer Emma Hope won gold in the Chelsea in Bloom competition, held to coincide with the flower show, but the plants were stolen from outside her shop in Sloane Square. ‘This year’s theme was love,’ she tells me. ‘We turned up on Sunday and the display had been knocked down and the plants taken — white irises and roses called Rhapsody in Blue.’