KILDARE GARDENING COLUMN: Looking back at a ‘Blooming’ fab year

At this time of year we meet with our advisors and look at two things — we review the year and look at what happened, and evaluate all the different aspects.

From that we put our plans together for the year to come.

Our advisors include several mentors, my business mentor Monica, our accountant, our marketing and branding expert, Philip and a team of marketing and PR professionals who all give us the advice that we need to help make our plans for the year.

What I wanted to share with you today though is our 2022 highlights of the first half of the year. When I’ve looked back at the year, it was with pride and delight at some of our highs.

It’s hard to think that we were in lockdown in January. It seems like a world away now, but most of January was spent in social lockdown, but thankfully retail was still open as usual and that included us, but the love for gardening and gardens was continuing.

We found it hard to imagine that we could improve on 2021, but the early part of the year from January to April started very well with marked improvement on the year before. February saw the huge demand for our garden design service, and we had built up quite a backlog of our design consultations.

We don’t like to keep our clients waiting, but from the middle of February we had already booked up to the end of May, but we were getting through them as quickly as possible, and increasing our output to bring that time line back to where we prefer it to be.

What this healthy start to the year, and the re-opening up of the country showed is the appetite for gardens was still very strong. The Bloom garden that we had planned in 2019 for 2020 was ready to be progressed and so the planning commenced.

We were already on the back foot with it as a show garden does take a huge amount of forward planning, but we did have some of the larger trees and specimens that we had ready for three years, so we were confident that we could have the garden ready. But it was going to take an awful lot of hard work.

Our team were key to this becoming a great garden and they really did step up to the mark. Andrew Dunne, our designer was amazing and he pulled together the most amazing garden through all the build stages.

March was very busy, our busiest month to date and we were building fabulous gardens as well as delivering huge amounts of trees and plants throughout the country.

Our production team were in full throttle producing the stock we needed, when we needed it to ensure that our trees and plant beds were always full and looking as well as they possibly could.

Marie runs our production team and she does sterling work to ensure the crops are all ready, when we need them. Borja ensures that those plants are picked for dispatch and Helen ensures that all the deliveries and planting projects are scheduled perfectly and co-ordinates all the elements so everything runs smoothly.

April was slightly quieter, but the design and project teams were still really busy, putting together designs and then building superb gardens. One of the highlight gardens was for Barretstown the children’s charity for whom we do a lot of work and we love to be able to support them when we can.

In terms of my own highlights, the surge in product availability for my own brand of outdoor furniture, Finn & Elder was perfect for the time of year and the demand was high. It was fabulously received and we sold out of lots of the collection on a number of occasions, but the turnaround time to keep the furniture in stock was being reduced and that was a relief.

Best in Show

May brought Bloom and the set up was arduous, but we loved every single minute of it. The weather was good and we managed the tightrope of ensuring that the plants and trees were at their peak for the Bank Holiday weekend, when the judging would take place.

As the garden came together it was clear to us all it was a very special garden, and that we had built something to be really proud of. The stone, the boardwalk, the trees and plants and the furniture just sparkled in the position that Andrew had for it. We spent days and nights in the garden making sure that every element of it was as good as we could possibly make it and it showed. We then spent the last few days dressing up the space adding those final tiny touches that elevate it.

First came press day and it was clear that it was being really well received by everyone and we had our good friend Hugh Wallace on the garden with us for the day. We had lots of support with Neven Maguire joining us to film a cookery programme from the garden and Marty Morrisey presenting a show from the garden too.

The following morning, the Thursday was when the medals were awarded and our anxiety levels were high when we were arriving in. The judges were doing the rounds, already awarding the medals, but they hadn’t arrived to our garden yet. I was also reporting from the show, so it was important that I got all the details of who received which awards, and that we got enough photographs from all the gardens.

Then it was our turn. We received a Gold medal, which was amazing, but also we received the highest acclaim ‘Best in Show’ and all the hard work had paid off. The following day we had the pleasure of the president and Mrs Higgins joining us in the garden. The continued response to the garden in the press and from all our clients and customers was fabulous. It was just the best few days and we loved every single minute of it. Those days will stay with us for such a very long time.

Next week we will look at the second half of the year and follow up on the platform that we had created. We all wish you a very Happy Christmas, the first one in a few that we can freely spend time with our families and friends and I’m looking forward to seeing our family members that we have not spent the festive period with for a long time and we are going to make the very most of it. We wish you a peaceful and special time with some garden time too.

Jo