Garden Festivals ‘Bloom’ in Ireland. Here’s four to watch out for

Ireland’s premier garden festival in Phoenix Park may have just finished but the garden festival season is still very much in full swing.

Four garden festivals taking place in Kilkenny, Dublin, Carlow and Claregalway during the next few weeks have caught my eye for various reasons, and each will be carrying a different theme. Before I give you the lowdown, here’s a short roundup of two of the designer gardens that caught my attention in Bloom in the Park this year.

Bank Holiday Bloom 2015 might have been one of the wettest and coldest I’ve been to, but the cooler weather did allow Mr G and I the opportunity to get up close and personal with several of the gardens on display. It’s been interesting observing how each year more edible plants have crept into the designs and this year was no exception.

The Irish Country Living garden designed by Fiann Ó Nualláin and Lisa Kelly was created almost entirely from reclaimed wood and metal and awash with edible plants to entice both us and our pollinating friends. There were several inspirations in there from the wooden door ‘shed’ to the corrugated raised beds and I enjoyed seeing the sea-kale in a garden environment having just sown a tray full in the polytunnel at home. This garden encapsulated a lot of the features its sponsoring magazine represents and I’m sure was a favourite of many.

From opulence to poverty, in contrast the GOAL garden was unlike all the others. Entitled ‘What you call a slum, I call home’, this garden designed by Joan Mallon reflected some of the many ways GOAL are working with people living in informal urban settlements (or slums) to help improve their health, livelihood opportunities, and general quality of life. It demonstrated how techniques like micro-gardening, bag gardening, recycling and rain-water harvesting can help families make the most of the uncompromising living environments.

I was at Bloom this year on the invitation of Jim Carroll of thisisbanter.com to chat with Jim and Ainé Lawlor about the Joy of Veg, a topic I could natter away about for hours! I’ll post a link to the podcast as soon as it becomes available.

Rothe House Garden Day

Saturday, 13th June

If Rothe House in Kilkenny has missed your radar then next time you’re visiting I’d urge you to take a look inside. It was built between 1594 and 1610 and consists of 3 houses built one behind the other. Behind the third house are the gardens which contained an orchard, herb and vegetable gardens, a pigeon-house, a well, and a summer-house at the far end. It’s a hidden gem in the middle of Kilkenny city and one not to be missed.

This Saturday a garden day will be taking place at Rothe House and there you’ll find a mixture of speakers and workshops, garden plant sale and craft fair. I’ll be talking from 11 am to 12 noon about growing vegetables in containers. It’s free entry into the garden day and the talks can be attended for just €5 pp each.

Dublin Garden Festival

19th to 21st June

With Diarmuid Gavin as headline speaker, The Dublin Garden Festival will feature horticultural displays, urban gardens, birds of prey, a Mad Hatters Tea Party, a petting zoo, craft demonstrations, Irish artisan food, live entertainment and much more.

If you’re a floral photographer this might be the garden festival for you as the whole of Christ Church Cathedral and grounds will be adorned with floral installations and props that sound enchanting for the ‘Open your Imagination’ theme. Hundreds of flowers will be used to create a display of contemporary and traditional floral designs, under the lead of artistic director and award-winning floral artist, Christopher White.

I’m looking forward to seeing some of the exhibitors, who we’re being promised will share with us new innovative solutions for the urban garden and home; aquaponics, rooftop potato planters and the Grow Dome Project to name but a few.

Carlow Garden Festival

25th June to 3rd July

I really enjoyed working on a Green and Vibrant project last year, helping to publicise our local garden Festival here in Carlow and this year’s line up of gardeners is sounding just as exciting.

Monty Don will be opening the nine-day festival and there will be heaps of trails and lectures suitable for all levels of gardening expertise and interest.

I was delighted to hear that Clonegal Community Garden will be joining the garden trail this year, a group I had the pleasure of working with during a short gardening course in 2013. For more information and details of the Carlow Garden Festival’s 2015 programme, take a look at Carlow Tourism’s website.

Soil Conference and Galway Garden Festival

4th to 6th July

During the 4th and 5th July Claregalway Castle are hosting a two-day garden festival that will be followed on Monday, 6th July by a soil conference where we hope to learn from a panel of international, national and local experts as they discuss the state of our soils and the best way to enhance and enrich this vital resource.

The keynote speakers are Dr. Elizabeth Stockdale – a renowned soil scientist from Newcastle University UK and Iain Tolhurst – author and experienced organic grower; many other experienced speakers will join in panel discussions and practical projects will be represented in a display of posters. The cost of the conference is €40 for the day and you can book through National Organic Training Skillnet.

For more information about Galway Garden Festival where you’ll find a list of all the guest speakers as well as the programme which includes medieval armoured combat, fire dance, archery display and several other events, take a look at their website. I found it a particularly nice touch that all the gate profits from the festival will be donated to The Simon Community, CBM Ireland and Claregalway Day Care Centre. It’s open daily from 11am to 6pm and Festival Admission is € 8.00 pp per day, Children FREE.

Do you find garden festivals inspire you and give you the opportunity to buy a few bits and pieces at them, or do you tend to head along for the days out and just soak up the atmosphere?

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