Renowned landscape and garden designer, Angela Binchy shares her thoughts and insights on this year’s crop of Bloom show gardens
In a world growing in fear and distrust and selfishness it was heartening to find Bloom 2017 celebrating diversity, inclusivity, and cooperation with the unifying factor being our dependence on nature.
The show gardens were an eclectic mix of designer and artisan talent showing a diversity of functionality and style. There was contemporary luxury and elegance in the form of ‘Living Oasis’ by Kevin Dennis, conceptual ideas were explored in Hugh Ryan’s ‘Stem Cell’ and Niall Maxwell’s ‘World Without Walls’ and Tünde Szentesi used an agricultural theme to underpin her ‘My land Your Land’ garden for Agri Aware.
Nothing was too small nor too extraordinary, even little dogs had a boutique garden. Further afield, country garden clubs and school children were featuring their locality in miniature postcard gardens and loving the buzz of the show. There was disappointment too. A good idea calling for plant decoration on the doorsteps of different style houses somehow didn’t really take off. Let’s hope for better next year. A big disappointment was the sculpture garden, which was always enjoyable in previous years. An ‘in your face ‘ black shiny plastic matting on the walkway was off-putting and the small sculptures, some very nice, were lost in an over-decorated space. Again, let’s hope for better next year and a return to sculpture in a suitable garden setting.
Now to get to the nitty-gritty of the show gardens. The general standard was pretty high and the planting had definitely improved. There were exceptions but planting is still ‘show-gardenesque’ with very close plant spacing, which is admittedly better than showing areas of blank soil. A flowering meadow style appeared to be popular. It looked pretty but in one garden I counted up to 13 different species or varieties in one square meter. Not all the plants used would survive in this style.
Judging, always a contentious issue, was less so this year I thought, and I heard fewer grumbles. There was some head-scratching about the best-planted garden. The show catalogue partially explains the judging system, such as a garden is judged under headings:
● meeting the design brief
● overall impression/design
● construction
● planting
For a gold medal, 75+ judge’s marks are required, down to 45-54 marks for bronze. Below that there is no award. Incidentally the word ‘like’ is banned from use by the Chelsea judging panel. It would be helpful if we knew how many marks were available for a reward under each heading, and also the actual marks finally awarded. It is surely helpful to everyone to know what experts find unsatisfactory as well as excellent. From a wider perspective, transparency and articulation of marks can serve as a tool for educating the public, helping to build a better understanding of what constitutes quality. Bloom’s lead judge, Andrew Wilson, among others, had the marks for his recent Chelsea gold medal garden read out by Monty Don on TV. The Super Garden competitors do not mind being criticised in front of the nation on TV so Bloom designers should not mind their faults being publicised. The judges hide in a large group and they should not mind. So who is being pandered to?
It is also surely rest time for some of Bloom’s judges. Andrew Wilson has been a lead judge since the show’s inception 11 years ago. I can say this because I was a member of the Bord Bia Horticulture Board during the inception and birth of Bloom, and knowing Andrew who was both a participant and a judge at Chelsea Flower Show I introduced him to Gary Graham as an excellent advisor in the establishment of Bloom. That he has been, he is very knowledgeable in the running of a world-class garden show and an excellent garden designer. He is one of the few speakers who was asked to speak twice at the GLDA’s international garden design seminars. Some of the other judges have also given long service. In any of the disciplines I can think of where judging is subjective (think Crufts Dog Show or the Dublin Horse Show), judges change annually or at least after a certain period. It’s not a reflection on their judging; it’s done to keep judging broad and fresh. They can always be asked back and it would be great to give the likes of Dan Pearson, Cleve West or Sarah Eberle a turn as an overseas judge.
The show gardens offered some interesting concepts and ideas, which were well designed and executed. Niall Maxwell’s concept for Oxfam Ireland and GOAL was original, topical and thought-provoking in its simple yet subtle presentation. Titled ‘A Garden Beyond Walls’, a number of huge blocks of the ugly, eight foot high dividing wall were removed and reassembled as colourfully painted seats in communal gathering spots in an open space. Delicate plants took root and flowered around the now inviting seats. Mirrors were placed in the gaps of the ugly wall, reflecting the garden to symbolise the similarity of life both sides of the wall. It was a big message, simply executed, and perfect for reproduction
in a public park. A well deserved gold medal and award for the best concept garden.
For me, gardens must stimulate some mental or sensuous reaction, and Oliver and Liat Shurmann’s ‘Transition’ garden for FBD Insurance did it in spades. I was immediately
transported to a friend’s magical hideaway beside a sheltered Atlantic sea inlet near Moyard in north Connemara, by the sculptural delicacy of the trees and glass shelter, the cool palette of green, white and black, the hypnotic effect of the very slowly receding and returning water from the jagged black schist rocks, the reflected passing clouds on the water – and that is the garden! It was truly a space to induce mental and physical healing, and what a feat of hidden mechanical engineering and laying of geologically correct rock
formations. All plants were supplied by the Schurmann’s own Mount Venus Nursery. The gold medal and best large garden award were truly merited.
In contrast, Alan Rudden’s garden ‘Urban Retreat’ for Savills left one emotionally blank. The garden looked as if it belonged to a wealthy banker who spent most of his free time in the Caribbean. Well done to Alan if this was his client! The garden was well designed and skillfully executed by his company Outside Options, with cuboid architectural forms enhanced by good colour tone combinations of brown and grey hard materials with green and white planting. The latter was a mixture of formal green blocks, mostly of an
interesting dwarf pine Pinus ‘Pierrick Bregeon’ with puffs of Allium ‘Mount Everest’ through it and informal shaded beds with 13 very tightly packed species and varieties of green
and white flowered perennials such as Hosta seiboldiana ‘Elegans’, Geranium phaeum ‘Album’, and Polypodium vulgare ‘Bifidomultifidum’. All plants were good quality and
supplied by Tully Nurseries, Campbell Plants, Yellow Furze Nurseries and Rentes. A deserved gold medal but it did not appear to have been a popular choice for best planting.
On the other hand, everyone seemed delighted with this year’s Super Garden ‘Rustica Hibernia’, a surprising but well-presented hillbilly arts and crafts garden. Both the garden
and the designer/builder, Des Kingston were bursting with personality, interest, and fun. I found myself joining a large happy group of people gathered around the garden singing
the Garden Song – “Inch by inch, row by row ….” along with Des and a group of minstrel singers! “Man is made of dreams and bones, feel the need to grow my own… Tune my body and my brain to the music of the land…”. RTÉ and Bloom, keep Des within your sights.
Hallelujah! At last Dublin City Parks have great plans to tree fill and green our capital city with interesting and bee-friendly natural and sustainable planting and well-placed seating. So we were told by their landscape designer Dara O’Daly in their attractive, educational and well-planted walk through garden dominated by a mighty fine oak tree with a 6ft
rootball (Quercus palustris supplied by Annaveigh Nurseries) and featuring an inviting very long sculpted oak log seat. If the garden is anything to go by, happy days ahead. The garden was built by MCD Landscapes. It was awarded silver gilt, I thought it deserved a gold.
Finally and tellingly, the people’s choice garden was an attractive, simple, stress relieving, circular flower garden of shrubs and herbaceous perennials graduating from dark colours to bright white, centred on a beautiful, uplifting sculpture by Michele Hannan. True to its title it was a ‘Garden of Hope’. Admirably designed and assembled by Louise Jones, Laura Cassin, Linda Murphy, and a team of Teagasc horticulturists led by Paddy Smith for the suicide prevention charity Pieta House. It was judged also a worthy gold and best medium size garden.
Perhaps it is time to update the categories for show gardens and the information signage with them. Signs for the postcard gardens were more informative and easier to read than
those with the show gardens.
CATEGORY SUGGESTIONS:
- Pleasure gardens based on the traditional perceptions of what a pleasure garden should be, such as John Durston’s calm and beautifully planted ‘Nature’s Resurgence’ for Ria Organics.
- Reproductions – installations of miniature natural or manmade landscapes or historic gardens that are of public interest or are under threat of damage or extinction, such as the popular miniature farm exhibit ‘My Land, Your Land – Ireland’ designed by Tünde Szentesi for Agri Aware.
- Novelty gardens which try to convey a cause or message, or tell a story where plants and materials might be used to represent other elements such as ‘The Strawberry Bed Garden’ by Maeve O’Neill with its bedstead seats over a miniature ‘river’ water feature. Another garden that would qualify as “novelty” would be ‘On Cloud Canine’ designed by Brian Burke for Dogs Trust. It was a good idea to have a dog-friendly garden but unfortunately, this one, while pretty, left scale and practically off the wall.
- Merchandise gardens which blatantly advertise products or services such as the ‘Despicable Me 3’ garden which was well designed and executed by Bríd Conroy for Universal Studios. It was a quirky, colourful, fun garden popular with youngsters following in the footsteps of the Tayto Park garden in 2014, but hardly fair to judge it in the same class as the ‘Garden of Hope’. In fact, surely such commercialised gardens if there at all should be in a separate section similar to the postcard and doorstep gardens.
All gardens should be judged to the same high standard of accepted garden design and horticultural best practice and there should always be an award for the best concept. What I would worry about is a slip towards powerful commercial interests getting a hold and commercialised honky-tonk elements creeping in. Instead, we could get builders and developers some way involved with gardens that have an emphasis on good soil preservation and maintenance. ✽
ANGELA BINCHY is a renowned landscape and garden designer, a founding member of the GLDA, and an active industry commentator.
