Round and round the garden

BLOOM:This year's Bloom gardening festival promises 27 show gardens, 40 specialist nurseries, floral artwork, expert advice and professional tree climbers, writes FIONNUALA FALLON

THE ANNUAL BORD BIA-organised extravaganza that is the Bloom gardening event begins next week, so fingers crossed that the sun will shine. In the meantime, here’s a preview of what we can look forward to.

27 show gardens

In a sign of the uncertain times that we live in, one of the most prominent themes among this year’s gardens is that of the outdoor space as a romantic retreat, sanctuary, or place of quiet refuge, while the idea of the garden as a space in which to cook and dine al fresco also endures (weather, are you listening?).

Eco gardening, the increasing menace of environmental pollution and the importance of sustainable landscape design are other enduring themes, while several of this year’s designers also explore the notion of a garden as an educational, symbolic or conceptual space.

Plants

Forty specialist nurseries will be exhibiting in Bloom’s floral marquee, with a vast selection of plants for sale throughout the event. But be prepared to elbow (oh-so-politely) rival gardeners out of the way to get your hands on the best.

Mount Venus Nursery: Expect a tantalising range of rare or unusual herbaceous perennials from owners Oliver and Liat Schurmann, including Sanguisorba hakusanensis, the lemon-scented Disporopsis pernyi, lots of astrantias and the sweetly perfumed, purplish-blue flowering Corydalis omeiensis.

Dicksonia Direct: Owner Billy Alexander is also the man behind the lovely, fern-filled Kells Bay gardens in Co Kerry. His Bloom 2012 offerings include China-sourced hydrangea species, the evergreen Japanese tassel fern, Polystichum polyblepharum, and the South American tree fern, Dicksonia sellowiana.

Rare Plants Ireland: Owner Finlay Colley is well-known to Irish plantaholics, who queue up to buy the rarities he sources from nurseries and breeders in the UK. Look out for the evergreen wheel tree known as Trochodendron aralioides, and various species of unusual flowering shrubs and trees including Calycanthos, Sinocalycanthos and Gordonia.

Peninsula Primulas: Philip Bankhead’s tiny nursery in the Ards Peninsula in Co Antrim specialises in primulas, that extraordinarily diverse but botanically complex genus to which so many wonderful garden-worthy plants belong. His Bloom 2012 offerings include Primula secundiflora, Primula aurantiaca and Primula prolifera.

Kilmurry Nursery: Not only is Orla Woods the co-ordinator who expertly oversees the installation of so many of Bloom’s display areas but, along with husband Paul Woods, she’s also the co-owner of the Chelsea Gold Medal-winning Kilmurry Nursery in Co Wexford. Expect lots of must-have perennials including the pure black Iris chrysographes Kilmurry Black, Thalictrum Tucker Princess, Persicaria Blackfield and Diplarrena morea.

Shady Plants: Owned by Mike Keep, this Co Waterford-based specialist nursery deals exclusively in ferns. Look out for the remarkable Athyrium Ghost whose young fronds are of the palest silver, the evergreen Woodwardia unigemmata whose juvenile fronds are brick-red as they unfurl, and the buckler fern, Dryopteris erythrosora Brilliance – a plant that Keep describes as “one of the very best evergreen ferns”.

Leamore Nursery: Paeonies are a particular speciality of this Wicklow-based nursery whose Bloom 2012 offerings include the fragrant, blush-coloured P Florence Nicholls, the carmine-red Diana P Parks and the double white/yellow Top Brass.

Camolin Potting Shed: One of the country’s longest established and best-loved specialist nurseries with an excellent range of grasses and herbaceous plants for sale, its Bloom 2012 stand will include the long-flowering, deep-wine coloured Astrantia Gill Richardson, the thistle-like Stemmacantha centaureoides and the blue-and-white, deliciously scented Lupin Persian Slipper.

Flower arrangements

This year, AOIFA (The Association of Irish Floral Artists) will have a Bloom show marquee all to themselves, with pride of place being given to the exhibit entitled The Phoenix Park 1662-2012; an intricately constructed floral artwork celebrating the 350th anniversary of this much-loved Dublin park.

According to AOIFA member Rosemary Smyth, it is expected that it will take eight members of the Maynooth Flower and Garden Club a minimum of three days to build the complex exhibit.

Along with many cut flowers (including foxgloves, delphiniums, irises, roses), the large display (3m x 4m) will include scaled models of two of the park’s best-known landmarks, The Wellington Testimonial and The Phoenix Monument.

Tree climbing

Professional tree climbers from all over Ireland will be competing against each other (and the clock) in a four-day event organised by Tree Care Ireland. This simulates the technical and physical skills required by tree surgeons. Definitely one for the adrenaline junkies. For more information about Tree Care Ireland Facebook page facebook.com/TreeCareIreland

Some expert advice

Horticulturists, gardeners, designers from the GLDA (Garden and Landscape Designers Association of Ireland) and landscape contractors from the ALCI will be on hand throughout much of the show, giving expert advice for free. Look out for Woodies Experts’ Stage as well as the ALCI (Association of Landscape Contractors of Ireland) stand in the Grand Pavillion. The Federation of Irish Beekeepers Associations will also have a marquee, while the Tree Council of Ireland, Birdwatch Ireland and the Irish Wildlife Trust will also have stands.

A Guinness world record?

With the help of some of Bloom’s many visitors, GIY Ireland is hoping to establish a new world record for the most seedlings planted simultaneously in the shortest time. The record stands at 904 and GIY’s aim is to get at least 1,000 people planting lettuce seedlings all at once. If you’d like to help, head for the park on Monday June 4th.

The walled garden

A 2.5-acre, historic walled garden that has been expertly restored by OPW is the elegant old lady of the show. Impeccably maintained by OPW gardeners Meeda Downey and Brian Quinn with the help of other OPW staff (Paul Whyte, take a bow), it’s home to a vast and very beautiful double herbaceous border, an orchard filled with heritage varieties of apples, countless vegetables, herbs and fruiting plants and a rather swanky apiary. In my humble opinion, it deserves an honorary gold medal all of its own.

Bloom takes place from Thursday, May 31st, to Monday, June 4th, at the Phoenix Park Visitors' Centre, Dublin. See bloominthepark.com