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GARDEN DESIGNERS, NURSERIES AND FLORAL ARTISTS TAKE HOME 15 MEDALS
COUNTY WICKLOW garden designers, nurseries and floral artists returned home from the Bloom festival with a fantastic 15 medals to their name.
After two days of adjudication, a total of 113 awards were presented at the 12th annual festival at the Phoenix Park.
Bloom vetern Tünde Szentesi from Calary was awarded a gold medal and ‘Best Concept Garden’ for her ‘Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again’ show garden. Ahead of the ABBA-inspired movie’s release, Tünde’s garden captured the exotic location of Kalokairi with its beautiful landscape and Greek architecture, including the famous Hotel Bella Donna.
Kilpeddar’s Peter O’Brien came away with a silver-gilt medal and the ‘Best Small Garden’ award for his Enchanted Wood show garden. A garden for all ages, the woodland planting and combination of stone, water and wood were all centred around a Dr Seuss-inspired children’s treehouse.
Clive Jones of Newtown Saunders Ltd in Baltinglass and the rest of the team behind the ‘Moments in Time – Dementia: Understand Together Garden’ received a bronze medal for their efforts. This garden is a gentle space that facilitates understanding, togetherness and connection with nature, drawing on a strong dementia-friendly design evidence-base and the lived experience of dementia. The announcement that this garden will soon find a home in Arklow (see below), will mean even more people can experience it for themselves.
Melanie Webb from Greystones also came home with a bronze medal for her Growing Shed Garden, her first Bloom entry. With its round tower, high grasses and mossy stone walls, the garden evoked a sense of wild County Wicklow within a low-maintenance suburban, urban garden.
In the Postcard Garden competition, the Bray Community Addiction Team received a Certificate of Distinction for their ‘Living with Heart’ garden which illustrated a person’s struggle as they try to break away from the jaws of addiction and despair. Among its features were a living canopy reflecting a place of shelter, an acorn seed symbolising strength and potential.
There were four Garden County medal winners in the AOIFA Floral Art Competition.
Blessington’s Christine Huges, a member of Naas Flower and Garden Club, was awarded a gold medal for her entry in the Microcosm category. She also came away with a silver-gilt medal for her entry in the Flowers Dance Upon the Air category.
Silver-gilt medals were also awarded to Bray Flower Club members Una Whelan and Carol Bone for their entries in the Summer Rich Tapestry and Flowers Dance Upon the Air categories respectively.
In the botanical and floral art competition, Holly Somerville from Baltinglass received a Silver Gilt Medal for her ‘Iris ‘ Turkish Blue’ art piece and a bronze medal; Lynn Stringer from Wicklow received two silver medals; and Yanny Petters from Bray also took home bronze.