Bord Bia, the main sponsor of the Bloom 2007 garden show in the Phoenix Park, estimated last evening that more than 35,000 people have already attended the event and it should achieve its target of 50,000 visitors by the end of the bank holiday weekend this evening.
Yesterday saw the adjudication of the garden designers' choice award when the Bloom garden designers voted for their favourite garden, excluding their own.
The winners were Bernadette and Éamon Doran from Wexford for their garden, "A Taste of Memory", which has the theme of a grandmother's garden where memories are reminisced upon.
There was no time for memories in the nursery and floral pavilion where many exhibitors had to restock overnight as the public bought up huge amounts of stock.
Orla Woods, of Kilmurry Nursery, Co Wexford, who co-ordinated the pavilion, said demand for plants was huge and the proximity of car parking to the event meant people could carry away their purchases.
Her company exhibited one of the three new plants seen for the first time in Ireland at this event - a new lavender and two new grasses.
Yesterday saw free entry for the first 200 registered entrants for today's Dublin women's mini-marathon and this afternoon the visitors' show garden award winner will be announced.
Other events scheduled for today include a presentation and question and answers session with gardening expert Dermot O'Neill and the continuation of the Bord Bia "Horticulture for Life" exhibit, which has proven very popular. This exhibit outlines the importance of horticulture not only in economic terms but on how it impacts on many aspects of Irish life and the importance of fruit and vegetables for good health.
This is a new venture for the food board, which has responsibility for the horticulture sector including gardening, now a billion euro industry for home and garden plants alone.
Bord Bia has put up more than €250,000 to sponsor the event with three other companies, creating what is the most ambitious event of its kind ever to be staged here at a cost of €1.5 million.
Aidan Cotter, chief executive of Bord Bia, said that despite yesterday's bad weather the attendance was high.
"It seems to have caught the imagination of the people and they seem undeterred by the weather.
"We only need 10,000 to 15,000 people here tomorrow to hit the target we set for the event."
The logistics of putting the show together are impressive, with the transformation of the 70-acre site at the OPW's Visitor Centre into a major show space only taking 36 days.
The site took 22 tonnes of bark mulch, 72,000 litres of water, 300 running metres of car park track, 300m of walkway and even two second World War bridges to allow cars access the 3,000 car spaces servicing the site.
The gates open at 10am and will close at 6pm.