Five-day festival celebrating the magic of gardens set to welcome 100,000 revellers
The exhibits have become an engaging, colourful platform for many organisations to communicate strong health and charitable messages. These include Moments in Time: Dementia Understand Together – a multi-sensory garden for people with the disease.
Also look out for a Sunsmart Garden to raise awareness of skin cancer by the Marie Keating Foundation. The Enable Ireland Beyond Boundaries Garden which caters for people of varying abilities will also prove very popular.
Other highlights include the No Limits – GOAL’S Garden For Women which highlights gender inequality in the developing world; and Trocaire’s “Peaceful Resistance” garden will represent the plight of Human Rights and Environmental Defenders.
In addition to the show gardens, there will be a large number of floral installations and gardening features including 13 postcard gardens designed by community groups.
The centrepiece of the Floral & Nursery Pavilion will be a “living” installation designed by Oliver and Liat Schurmann to communicate to visitors the role of Origin Green – the world’s first food and drink sustainability programme operating nationally and created by Bord Bia. Foodies are also in for a treat as visitors can meet some of Ireland’s top food producers. The Bord Bia Quality Kitchen Stage which will host cookery demonstrations from some of Ireland’s best-loved chefs including Neven Maguire, Catherine Fulvio, Paul Flynn, Oliver Dunne, Rory O’connell, JP Mcmahon and Roz Purcell, Gary O’hanlon and Adrian Martin.
The Bloom Inn features some of our best craft brewers and distillers.
The Bloom Farmyard will provide an opportunity to view some of Ireland’s Robyn Cullen and Jamie Green get set for Bloom festival main animal herds with a dairy cow, a beef heifer, calves, sheep, lambs, pigs and chickens all on display.
Top horticulturalists including Anna Kavanagh, Gerry Daly, Paraic Horkan and Peter Dowdall will be offering sage gardening advice on the Garden Expert Stage. Ellen Mary will be inspiring gardeners to use plants not just for visual attraction but also for common health issues, with a focus on women. Away with the
Courtesy shuttle buses are the best way to get there.
They will be available to ferry visitors to and from Park Gate Street to the show, which is situated in the Phoenix Park
Visitor Centre (also home to Ashtown Walled Garden) as well as those travelling by train or by Luas (services commence at 8.30am and finish at 7pm).
Those travelling by car can park in one of two designated areas in Phoenix Park for a daily rate of €5. Red Car Park A will serve City Centre traffic from Parkgate
Street entrance while Green Car Park B will serve City Centre/ncr traffic north city and M50 traffic from the Castleknock gate and White’s Gate.