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Scents, sights, sounds and sweet peas – Carlow’s Floral Festival is a feast for the senses, writes Gemma Tipton

DO YOU KNOW your hosta from your phlox? I don’t, but I was keen to find out, and the annual Carlow Floral Festival seemed the best place to start. Surrounded by experts (Dermot O’Neill, Helen Dillon, Dick Warner, Joy Larkcom Pollard), and in the surroundings of Carlow’s glorious gardens, how could anyone’s fingers not turn green? Carlow has been making the most of its gardens for some time now; they range from the old walled gardens of Duckett’s Grove and Altamont, to Kilgraney’s medicinal herb gardens, to the Delta Centre – where I begin my day. The Delta Centre, unprepossessingly hidden in an industrial estate, is a wonderful discovery. It provides training, residential and day services to adults with learning disabilities, and part of this is time spent visiting and working in the sensory gardens. Designers, including Mary Reynolds, Gordon Ledbetter and Jimmi Blake, have made the interconnecting gardens a real feast.