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Bord Bia’s Bloom 2018
Eclectic mix of stunning show gardens, tantalising food features and fun for all the family at Bord Bia’s Bloom Thursday May 31st – Monday June 4th 2018
The five day event showcases the best of Irish horticulture and food industry. This year will feature 20 spectacular show gardens along with endless garden and floral features. Fun for the whole family, Bloom features arts, crafts, music, food and drink as well as talks, debates, workshops and live cookery demonstrations with some of Ireland’s best loved chefs.
One of the main attractions for the thousands of visitors to Bloom each year is the show gardens. These gardens are constructed by leading garden designers, some being worth €1 million (accounting for plants, materials, sponsorship and labour). These beautiful works of art have been used as engaging platforms to highlight particular issues. Many organisations have used them to communicate charitable messages as well as promoting strong health.
Bord Bia’s Bloom 2017. Photo Chris Bellew /Fennell Photography
Some examples for 2018 include: Moments In Time: Dementia Understand Together, which is a multi sensory garden for people who suffer from dementia. A Sun Smart Garden, to raise awareness of skin cancer. Designed by the UK based ‘Hairy Gardner’s’ for the Marie Keating Foundation. Enable Ireland are also represented with the Enable Ireland Beyond Boundaries Garden. GOAL are using their garden to highlight the issue of gender inequality in the developing world with their No Limits – GOAL’s Garden For Women. Trocaires’s Peaceful Resistance garden represents the plight of Human Rights and Environmental Defenders.
A nod to pop culture will also be found in gardens across the festival. Universal will host a Greek-style Garden inspired by ABBA songs to celebrate the cinema launch of Mamma Mia, Here We Go Again! Woodies will be celebrating 30 years in Ireland with their garden Moving Statues to Marriage Equality, which will chronicle pivotal points in Ireland’s social and cultural evolution. Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council’s garden DLR-Fernhill – An Exercise in Sustainability and The Greener Way for Fingal by Fingal County Council will both explore urban living and the need for access to the outdoors. The journey from tide to table of the fish found around Ireland will be told in BIM’S Sustainable Seafood Garden.
It’s not just show gardens on display at Bloom, there will be lots of garden features and floral installations. These include the 13 Postcard Gardens, which will be designed by community groups. The Floral & Nursery Pavilion will be filled to the brim with plants and flowers from over 30 of the best plant nurseries in Ireland. The Garden Expert Stage and AOIFA Floral Art Stage; a Botanical & Floral Art Exhibition; and the Office of Public Works’ Victorian Walled Kitchen Garden located at the centre of the site, allows visitors to learn about the design and layout of this traditional garden structure.
The Organic Garden 2017. Photo Johnny Bambury / Fennell Photography
For 2018, 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 on a national scale, created by Bord Bia. The semi-circular walls made from wheatgrass, barley, cress and micro-greens will enclose a miniature town to communicate the role Origin Green plays at community level. The purpose grown feature will be dripping with water throughout the event and, as 90% of the materials are natural, it will decompose within days.
Make sure you don’t miss out, click here to get your tickets now.
