THE BLOOM 2010 garden festival in the Phoenix Park over the June bank holiday is preparing to go a deeper shade of “green” this year.
It plans to reduce its carbon footprint with additional waste management controls, the reuse of materials after the event, and increased use of public transport to and from the Dublin venue.
More than 50,000 visitors are expected to visit the show, which runs from next Thursday to Monday and features 24 show gardens. One exhibit will be a rain garden, which will show how rain can be stored and used in a way suitable for any Irish garden.
Sustainability, local food and grow your own, will be central themes of this year’s event, according to Bord Bia, which organises the festival.
The board is also working with the Carbon Trust to measure the carbon footprint of the festival and will use the results to plan future events.
One of the highlights is expected to be the grow it yourself garden, which will demonstrate the secret potential of every ornamental garden.
Every plant in this garden is also edible. The message being that growing fruit and vegetables is something everyone can do and self-sufficiency need not be at the expense of chic garden design.
One of the gardens will continue the theme by using industrial salvage from the 19th to 21st century when an industrial iron boiler becomes a 3.5 metre tall sculpture.
By reusing non-biodegradable products in imaginative ways, this garden, according to Bord Bia, invites us to think about how many items could have useful second lives in our gardens before we throw anything out.
Visitors will also be shown in one of the gardens how planting certain plants can encourage and sustain the bee population in urban areas.
Bord Bia has increased the food element of this year’s show and will bring in food producers to give advice to the public and explain what is in season now.
More than 50 of the best known artisan food producers will exhibit at the food market, an established feature of the festival.
The Office of Public Works, which provides the 70-acre site for the festival, will once again open its Victorian-style walled kitchen garden to the public. The garden will allow visitors to learn more about growing fruit, vegetables and flowers, and during the five-day event the Phoenix Park gardeners will be on hand to answer any questions.
The garden expert stage will also host a comprehensive range of leading experts in horticulture, gardening and floristry.
Speakers will include British TV presenter James Alexander Sinclair, Ireland's gardening guru Gerry Daly and Shawna Lee Coronado, US author of the critically acclaimed book Gardening Nude,a guide for living a green lifestyle.