Gardening

Perennial pleasures of flowers on wonderful display at Bloom

This year’s Bloom in the Park flower festival celebrates the fact that, post-pandemic, gardening is now not for just a green-thumbed minority, but for everybody

Aileen Muldoon-Byrne, of Boyne Garden Centre, has seen a big demand for pollinator-friendly plants. The message that we need to use our gardens to help biodiversity is getting through, she says in a wide-ranging interview. Picture: Fennell

One of the few advantages of the coronavirus pandemic and its associated lockdowns has been the transformative approach of everyday people to their gardens and outdoor spaces, as well as an emergence of new gardeners eager to learn about growing plants.

With that in mind, the appetite for Bloom in the Park, Ireland’s largest garden show, will be huge this year.

Speaking to some of Ireland’s well-established nursery experts and garden designers, all familiar faces ...