This October, Dublin-based floral design studio, flower and plant shop The Garden is marking 15 years in business with a new exhibition ‘BOG – 15 Years of the Garden’. Launching Thursday, 9th October 2025, the exhibition features more than 20 Irish creatives whose work echoes the quiet power of the bog, rooted in time, place, and the enduring presence of craft.
Founded in 2010 by landscape gardener Mark Grehan, The Garden marries the wilds of Connemara with the elegance of its Georgian surroundings at Powerscourt Townhouse in the heart of Dublin 2. Since studying horticulture at university, Grehan has worked in London, Sydney, New York and across Ireland, as a landscape and floral designer for both private and commercial clients, including Gucci, Chanel, COS, Hermès, & Other Stories, Ballynahinch Castle and Brown Thomas. In 2010, in the midst of the recession, he realised his dream of becoming a shopkeeper when he took over the empty foyer of Powerscourt Townhouse, transforming the space into a much-loved, fragrant and atmospheric escape in Dublin’s city centre. In 2023, The Garden’s second location at Mill Street opened, bringing Grehan’s cut flowers, exotic plants and covetable gifts to Dublin 8.
Over the last 15 years, Grehan and his team have worked on memorable floral displays for weddings, private and commercial events, fashion shows, shoots and launches, retail, stage and film sets throughout Ireland, Europe and the US. Highlights include fashion work with Brown Thomas, including creating an installation along the store wall for the luxury department store’s reopening after the pandemic; working with renowned wedding planner Tara Fay to design and create floral displays for the Engage Summit at Adare Manor in 2018 and 2022; creating the highest garden in Ireland for the Guinness Storehouse; large scale installations at Electric Picnic; and the recent wedding of Derry Girls star Saoirse Monica Jackson to musician Hector Barbour.
Other highlights include a dinner hosted at Ballyfin Demesne in 2015 that kickstarted a 10-year relationship with Hermès. Since 2023, The Garden has designed, created and produced a garden terrace every season at the iconic brand’s New Bond Street store in London. The landscape of Grehan’s native Connemara – bogland, heather, bracken and gorse fields- inspires his unique approach to floristry and landscape design.
As a creative business, Grehan has forged relationships with and supported a community of creatives over the last 15 years.
“When I opened The Garden, there was a great sense of community, a willingness of other like-minded people to want to support and work with me,” explains Grehan. “That feeling is still there, even after all this time. Dublin might be a big place, but there is a supportiveness, a village mentality of rallying around. To mark this anniversary, I wanted to create something to bring that together. The inspiration for the exhibition was very natural; I’ve had my hands in the earth since I was 12 years old. The bog is where I grew up.”
‘BOG – 15 Years of the Garden’ brings together Irish artists and craftspeople to explore the bog as both material and metaphor. Natural archives of memory and time, boglands preserve and protect, much like the practices of making and craft. Rooted by Grehan’s own personal connection to the boglands of Barna, West Galway, where he grew up, the exhibition invites reflection on what we keep, what surfaces, and what lies beneath. This exhibition includes work in many mediums, from photography, print, film, ceramics, glassware, fashion, jewellery and textiles. Artists include Amo Kilfeather, Brian Teeling, Cliodhna Prendergast, Domino Whisker, Endless Rhythm, Fermoyle Pottery, Finn Richards, J Hill’s Standard, Julie Connellan, Linda Brownlee, Maggie O’Dwyer, Mourne Textiles, Noel Byas, Phillip White, Simon Walsh, Superfolk and The Tweed Project.
To mark the launch of ‘BOG – 15 Years of the Garden’, a film by videographer Dave O’Carroll has also been commissioned, exploring Mark’s background and practice as a floral and landscape designer. The film is shot in Mark’s family home in Barna, West Galway, the nearby bog and in The Garden’s Dublin shops at Powerscourt Townhouse and Mill Street. An image, ‘Mary’s Hands’ by photographer Doreen Kilfeather, features Grehan’s mother’s hands holding the hardy but ethereal bog cotton that surrounds the family home. Reproduced on a limited run of locally printed t-shirts, these are for sale throughout the month of October, with all proceeds going to Green Sod Ireland, a non-profit land trust organisation that works to protect biodiversity, create safe habitats for the free movement of wildlife, and restore Irish peatlands to ensure the continued and enduring presence of the bog. Limited edition T-shirts are priced at €35 and are available from The Garden, Powerscourt Townhouse, Dublin 2 and www.thegarden.ie.
A special new tote bag has also been designed for the 15-year anniversary, waterproof and hardwearing it is made using sacking traditionally used to gather turf on the bog. The bespoke bag will launch alongside the exhibition, priced at €25. ‘BOG – 15 Years of the Garden’ launches on Thursday, 9th October, with artworks displayed to the public and for sale in-store at The Garden’s Powerscourt Townhouse location until 2 nd November. Follow @shopthegarden for updates.
