This year my friend and internet ad pioneer Stephen Klein did not come to the Chelsea Flower Show. This was a shame not only because I like to spend time with Steve, but also because it reduced by 50 percent the number of attendees at the Show's opening night who actually care about flowers. Fortunately, the Queen had a more developed sense of duty.

Last night's event was quite memorable. It was freezing cold as usual for a late May evening in London, but at least it did not rain. The opening night drew the usual mix of bankers, lawyers, FTSE 100 CEOs and Chairmen, to ogle each other while pretending (not too strenuously) to view the flower gardens. From my perspective, it was reassuring to see so many Thomson Reuters clients working the crowd, seemingly unaware that the UK media had declared that the "End is Near."

Many of the gardens on display really are spectacular labors of love. My favorite, which seemed to best capture the zeitgeist of the times, was the Asian themed grass-covered rolling dunes complete with an industrial-sized espresso machine. This surely best combined the gardening and banking cultures at work at Chelsea last night.