The Royal Dorset Horticultural Society's 53 Annual Garden Show opened at its Chaldon Herring Showgrounds today to record attendances (8 adults, 13 OAPs, 2 children and 4 fully paid-up members). A highlight of the Dorset February calendar, the Threabbonemeals-sponsored event (Threadbonemeals website HERE) always brightens up a dreary month though, to some, the perversely early mid-Winter slot "significantly reduces the chances of anything being in bloom as is perfectly obvious to anyone looking around the place today - it looks like Siberia". However, Chairwoman Hester Panspermia is quick to point out that "getting in early avoids the Spring rush and puts us well ahead of Chelsea"*).
* "which isn't that difficult given how they are playing at the moment under the raven haired Antonio Conte. I think they should stick to three at the back with Hazard as a false Number 9", quips her husband Basil Panspermia before receiving a sharp blow from a Fiskar's Quantum Two-hand maxi-pruner.
The Royal Dorset Horticultural Society's 53 Annual Flower and Garden Show was inspected yesterday by Lady Garden and opens to the public today at the Society's Chaldon Herring Showground.
Opening the event, the Society's Patron Lady Garden (former Thrupiece Radio and Television presented Hester Nicely-Pointy) congratulated all concerned on their heroic efforts "to get something to grow even if it is a potted plant that looks a bit like willy" **, Highlighting in particular "the magnificent exuberance of the large public areas", but reserving especial praise for the ladies section and "the care and attention to detail evidently lavished on their more intimate private spaces", she expressed a degree of envy for their skilful personal topiary. "They all have delightfully well-trimmed bushes", she gushed. "I like to think I keep mine pretty neat", Lady Garden added, "but seeing these, I realise I shall have to get busy with the clippers when I get home"***.
Lord Garden who accompanied his wife to the drinks tent declined to confirm whether the former Dorset beauty was as attentive to her home grooming as she had implied. "The old girl's always down there hacking away", he said, "so I imagine it's pretty svelt, but I couldn't really say. I haven't bothered to take a close look for more than a decade. It could be like a haystack for all I know". Casual observers of Lady Garden were inclined to agree.
** See below - according to RDHS sources, the plant is in fact the highly respectable Bolivian Torch Cactus, though both the RHS and the Linnean Society disagree.
*** thought to be an oblique and - if so - not very amusing reference to Professor Thrupiece's presumed fatal demise in a Swiss hotel bedroom at the hands of a small electrical appliance (nasal clipper); an incident subject to ongoing investigations by the Swiss authorities [L'autorité Suisse].
The Royal Dorset Horticultural Society's 53 Annual Flower and Garden Show is attracting record crowds and generating much excitement in horticultural circles. ABOVE: Patron Lady Garden inspects genetically modified seeds at the Threadbone Laboratories Stand after judging the "Best Kept Bush" competition. The award went to the staff of Threadbonemeals (Fiddleford Branch) in a "dance off" described as "a very close shave" (see *** above); UPPER MIDDLE: Undercover members of the RDHS security staff on the look out for "out of county" intruders bent on horticultural espionage (so far there have been four false arrests, one unlawful detention and a broken pot stand); LOWER MIDDLE: the "Bolivian Torch Cactus" which won "Plant Most Closely Resembling a Sexual Organ" for long-standing RDHS member The Very Reverend Horace Dry-Spikes; BOTTOM RIGHT: an exhausted Hester Panspermia takes a few well earned "moments out" to air her odour-eaters; BOTTOM LEFT: The Thrupiece Memorial Garden exhibit which has sharply divided critical opinion . The large non-biodegradable spheres surrounded by a forest of spikes are said by the designers Ruud and Lottie Sigurdssen-Laarssen-Svenssen-Johanssen-McNightly to represent "the ova or omphalos (ὀμφαλός) from which so much of Professor Thrupiece's seminal creativity sprang". It has been dubbed by critics "the usual Thrupiece Scandi-Noir balls"
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