Chelsea: Flower Power rules the start of season

By Paul Majendie

LONDON, May 19 (Reuters) - A topless model poses in the foliage, environmentalists plead for the water vole, yoga enthusiasts balance on tip-toe amid the plants.

Media day at the Chelsea Flower Show can be a truly surreal experience when former Beatle Ringo Starr rubs shoulders with the national sailing team and "Weakest Link" TV presenter Anne Robinson launches a garden for Alzheimer sufferers.

The world's most famous flower show is bedecked for the day in some very unlikely finery -- TV soap stars, interior designers and even donkeys, chickens and a Shetland pony are on display. No gimmick is too outrageous.

But then it's all-change as the show goes upmarket.

The camera crews and jostling reporters are ushered out on Monday afternoon so the Queen can tour the show in regal solitude.

For High Society, Chelsea is the launchpad for the summer season with socialites then trekking indefatigably to Royal Ascot races, Wimbledon tennis and a night at the opera in the country at Glyndebourne.

But for green-fingered enthusiasts fuelling Britain's 2 billion pound gardening industry, this is serious business.

Gardening, in the words of designer Terence Conran, is "the new rock 'n' roll for the young". Famous cooks vie with gardening experts for airtime on the latest makeover show.