Kildare garden designers to showcase their work at Bord Bia Bloom
Bord Bia has announced that garden designers Joe Eustace and the Heritage Design group from Kildare will showcase at this year’s Bord Bia Bloom. Now in its 18th year, Ireland’s favourite festival of flowers, food and fun, returns to the Phoenix Park, Dublin, this June bank holiday weekend (May 30th – June 3rd).
Kildare Garden Designers
While the event organisers are finalising the show line-up and getting ready to launch this year’s festival, show garden designers are already hard at work preparing for what is due to be another action-packed Bord Bia Bloom. At the centre of the festival, the show gardens are the ‘jewel in the crown’ and feature bold, thought-provoking and innovative designs from a pool of talented garden designers from around Ireland. Among these are:
- Joe Eustace, co-founder of Online Garden Designs, won the inaugural Bord Bia Bloom Cultivating Talent initiative in 2023. The 22-year-old recently finished a bachelors degree in Landscape Architecture at University College Dublin and will pursue a masters degree at the same university next year. Joe has worked on a number of projects both in the private and public sphere, nationally and internationally. His passion for aesthetics and ecology drives his design, creating outdoor spaces for both people and the environment to enjoy. His first show garden, The Next Step, won a silver-gilt medal at last year’s Bloom.
This year he will be designing the Citroën Floating Lounge Garden. It centers around a lounge patio which appears to float weightlessly over the garden. Enclosed within planting and cocooned by a contemporary pergola and fireplace, it reflects the ‘Flying Carpet’ feel of Citroën’s patented suspension and echoes its ‘home from home’ approach to the comfort of its interiors. This is a garden that invites you to relax and unwind as you watch the stresses of life simply float away.
- Heritage Design is a group of earthy garden enthusiasts from the Kildare/West Wicklow area. A member of the group, Judy Howard, sowed the seed of inspiration to mark the 1500 Brigid commemoration by developing a St Brigid’s garden. The design was initiated and work commenced by a very collaborative and skilled team.
The Brigid 1500 Commemorative Garden recreates the simplicity of a sixth century garden and pays tribute to the sixth century saint. The central focus is a life-sized model of St Brigid, handwoven from Irish-grown willow. Structures within the garden include a bridge made of willow which crosses a small pond that represents St Brigid’s Well. A raised stone seat provides a place for quiet contemplation. Nearby a drying shed in a simple structure is constructed from birch and willow. All plants in the garden are functional and have been chosen for their edible or medicinal properties, or their use in textiles and construction.
Bord Bia Bloom 2024
In addition to the spectacular Show Gardens at the heart of the show, the Food Village will feature more than 100 food and drink companies offering the finest of Irish produce. There will also be an impressive schedule of live talks, music, performances and demos across multiple stages each day including the Sustainable Living Stage, Garden Stage and the Quality Kitchen Stage. The Postcard Gardens supported by Tirlán CountryLife will highlight amateur garden designs from community groups nationwide.
For shopping enthusiasts, there is an array of quality products for home and garden, including the Design and Crafts Council exhibition, Nursery Village, Retail Pavilion, Botanical & Floral Art displays and Quality Mark Plant village. Bord Bia Bloom organisers are currently finalising the full event line-up which will be announced in the coming weeks.