Although we can’t celebrate in the Phoenix Park this year, Bord Bia is bringing a flavour of Ireland’s largest gardening and lifestyle festival into your home on Sunday, May 31st!
Bloom at Home will take place on Sunday, 31st of May with a schedule of talks and performances, including gardening talks, performances and cooking demonstrations, all streamed on Bord Bia Bloom social media channels and BordBiaBloom.com.
From preparing vibrant flower beds and much-loved house plants, to creating a wildflower meadow at home, or preparing a back garden picnic, there are a range of ways you can get involved. In advance of Bloom At Home, we’ll be sharing advice and tips on how to get your garden or plants ready for the Bank Holiday weekend. We want to see the nation’s gardens, plants and flowers in a national celebration of Bloom and will be partnering with RTE to reward your efforts. We’ll be sharing more details about this national competition and the Bloom At Home line up very soon.
In the meantime, we will be featuring gardening tips and information from Bord Bia Bloom staff and some of the festival’s long-time participants. This week, Bord Bia Bloom Manager Gary Graham shares his advice on how to best plan out your garden with the space you have and we’ll learn more about GIY Ireland’s GROW It Forward initiative to get 50,000 people growing their own food at home.
Designing Your Room Outside
Bloom Manager Gary Graham shares his advice on how you can create a slice of nature at home
As we all eagerly await the reopening of garden centers, now is the ideal time to share a thought or two about garden design and the planning process. Typically, most of us never get to spend a lot of time at home in our garden, so we rarely take the time to properly assess the site before we make decisions about paving, borders, and where to place the trampoline or goal posts. If we did take some time, we could exploit a garden’s natural advantages and mitigate its poorer features.
To better identify where to locate an outdoor dining space, take a chair from the kitchen, move it to the garden and sit on it a few times a day – moving it to follow the moving sun. This can help you quickly identify where the garden is most exposed to chilly winds and where the garden offers most privacy from neighbours’ windows.
You can find more gardening tips and inspiration from Gary on GroMór’s Instagram page @gromorireland every Wednesday. He talks all things gardening, accompanied by some special guests – you may even recognise some of them from Bloom!
Long-time Bloom participant, GIY Ireland, have launched a national call to action to get people growing their own food at home, giving them the skills, knowledge and resources that they need to do so, with the goal of helping 50,000 grow their own food for the first time.
Growing your own food can offer a new challenge and a mindful dose of fresh air and optimism, along with the promise of great home-grown food to look forward to.
However, most people remain daunted by the thought of food growing. There has never been a better time to address this skills deficit and help people to grow food successfully. The organisation is calling on 5,000 GIYers up and down the country to GROW It Forward, receiving free seeds and then passing seeds, seedlings or produce on to 10 others to create a wave of food growing across the country. Sign up by Friday, May 15th to get involved in this great project.
Do you need gardening essentials delivered to your home?
Bord Bia has compiled a list of nurseries and garden centres around the country that are offering local delivery on gardening supplies and tools. See who is delivering in your county below.
To learn more about what’s in store for Bloom At Home, please visit bordbiabloom.com or follow us on our social media.
