Local designers ready to add their flair to Bloom’s beautiful show gardens
THE show-gardens are undoubtedly the highlight of the annual Bloom festival and, this year, no less than five of those 22 spectacular creations will come from the minds of Co Wicklow designers.
The work of Tunde Szentesi, John Durston, Clive Jones and Hugh Ryan will be viewed by the thousands of visitors to the Phoenix Park for the 11th Bloom festival this bank holiday weekend (June 1 to 5).
Kilcoole landscape architect Tunde Szentesi is no stranger to Bloom, having won a silver-gilt medal in 2016 with ‘Out the Other Side: A Garden of Hope’ for the Marie Keating Foundation. She also has two silver medals to her name from 2015 and 2013 and also won the ‘Best in Category’ for her 2013 small garden. This year, the Hungarian native is involved in designing two gardens – the Agri Aware ‘My Land, Your Land’ garden and another garden for the Marie Keating Association which is co-designed with Paul Dunne.
Having honed his skills as a landscape designer over the last 17 years, John Durston from Ballylusk, Ashford, is tackling his first showgarden at Bloom. He has collaborated with Wicklow skincare company Ría Organics to design a garden that complements the company’s product range and encapsulates the ethos and values of Ria Organics.
Clive Jones, from Baltinglass landscape company Newtown Saunders Ltd, is part of the design team for the Dementia Friendly Garden. The garden’s clever use of layout, colour, planting and customised garden fittings help to create an attractive, safe and therapeutic outdoor space designed to tap into a person’s retained skills, abilities, interests and memories. In designing the garden, Clive has worked closely with Sinead Grennan from Sonas apc and Tom Grey, a Research Fellow at Trinity Haus.
Aughrim landscape designer Hugh Ryan returns to Bloom with his latest garden ‘Stem Cell’. Reflecting Ireland’s monastic tradition where the cell is seen as a retreat from the world, Hugh hopes that ‘Stem Cell’ can be viewed as a modern retreat. The cell walls have been exploded and re-arranged to give a semi-enclosed space where screening is provided by both the walls and the embracing plants.
In addition to the show-gardens, three Garden County exhibitors – Yanny Petters from Enniskerry, Holly Somerville from Baltinglass and Lynn Stronger from Kilcoole – will be competing in the Botanical and Floral Art Exhibition. E
The AOIFA Floral Art Stage will be home to over 38 exhibits from some of the country’s top floral artists, including Carol Bone from Bray.
As usual, Bloom will be packed with a broad range of attractions for all the family.
For the green-fingered there are the 13 small, postcard gardens created by amateur gardeners, the floral and nursery pavilion and the garden expert stage.
For those who love artisan food and drink, the food village will host over 100 Irish food producers, the Bloom Inn (with its collections of craft brewers and distillers), the kitchen stage featuring more than 25 live cookery demonstrations and a range of aritsan stalls.
The ‘Budding Bloomers’ area will host a mixture of family-friendly events to help keep children of all ages entertained and active; there will be a chance for little ones to engage in hands-on farming activities and Keelings will be giving kids the chance to grow their own strawberries.
Tickets for Bloom are on sale now on Ticketmaster and can be purchased on the gate. Prices vary from €16–€22.50 and children under 16 are free.