Garden designers are set to bloom this weekend 

MORE than 50 Dublin garden designers, nurseries and floral artists have been announced as part of the line-up for Bloom 2017. 

Run by Bord Bia and now in its 11th year, Bloom showcases the best of Ireland’s horticultural and food industry. This year’s event will take place in the Phoenix Park from June 1-5.

Bloom 2017 will feature 22 spectacular show gardens created by award winning garden designers, including Fingal County Council Bloom Garden Design Team (Kevin Halpenny, Gemma Carr, Sid Kivitt and Dermot McLaughlin); Kevin Dennis (Cityscape Gardener), Raheny; Niall Maxwell and Marina Andreev (Niall Maxwell Garden Design), Oldtown; and Tricia Harris and Seamus Furlong (Chocolate Factory Collective).

Kevin Dennis is a garden designer, horticulturist and founder of Cityscape Gardener based in Raheny.  

Santa Rita and Kevin Dennis have come together to demonstrate how an oasis of calm can be achieved in the hectic lifestyle of urban living. The ‘Living Oasis by Santa Rita, Living La Vida 120’ garden will celebrate how outdoor spaces should be cherished and how they can make people’s moments special.

Niall Maxwell is a multi-award winning garden designer with three previous Bloom medals and has designed and created private gardens in the Dublin area for the past 20 years. The garden will be a vibrant, social space designed to highlight the need for tolerance and acceptance in a world that is becoming increasingly divided.

The ‘Flúirse Fingal’ show garden is a collaborative project between Fingal County Council, Institute of Technology Blanchardstown and the Dublin and Dún Laoghaire Education and Training Board. Garden designer Jane McCorkell, lecturer in horticulture at ITB has designed the show garden in conjunction with the Parks & Green Infrastructure Division of Fingal County Council to capture a taste of the diversity the North County Dublin area of Fingal has to offer both visitors and residents alike, as reflected by the county’s motto ‘Flúirse Talamh is Mara’ – Abundance of Land and Sea.

A Space to Collaborate, sponsored by the Chocolate Factory Collective, Dublin has been designed by Tricia Harris and Seamus Furlong. 

The garden is a creative sanctuary which is focussed on its inhabitants and the interaction that is fostered through collaboration. 

The creative process mirrors the life cycle of the planting throughout the garden, which acts as the glue to bring the elements together and the garden to life, softening the built lines and providing the inhabitant with a multi-sensory experience.