BLOOM DAYS

There's lots to see at Bloom, this weekend's big flower show in the Phoenix Park, but it's not the only green-fingered event …

There's lots to see at Bloom, this weekend's big flower show in the Phoenix Park, but it's not the only green-fingered event this summer, writes Jane Powers.

As you are reading this, Phoenix Park is abuzz, I hope, with Bloom. The garden and food festival, the biggest of its kind in Ireland, opened yesterday and continues until Monday. Its organiser, Bord Bia, must be praying for good weather this holiday weekend, as it is banking on 50,000 visitors to inspect the 30 or so gardens and interactive displays, and the dozens of nursery and floral stands - while grazing on the toothsome Irish food available from the show's outdoor markets.

Among the garden designers are the well-known names Elma Fenton and Paul Martin and Oliver and Liat Schurmann, who have made a garden in the shape of a Tibetan mandala, which the public is allowed to stroll through - an unusual liberty at most garden shows. The Schurmanns' "Infinity" is part of the Engaging Space area, where visitors partake in the creations rather than just gaze at them.

Also here is "The Garden that Nobody Saw", made by students from Dún Laoghaire Senior College. Those who enter this space will be blindfolded and escorted through a range of sensory experiences by the garden's makers, who have been trained by the National Council for the Blind of Ireland.

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Smaller visitors can be kept busy with a maze, planned by Grace Garde and Paul Kavanagh, and in the "Muck and Magic Playground", designed by Dale Treadwell.

The main show gardens have been laid out in the old walled garden in the park, where the high brick enclosure makes a good-looking backdrop.

Jane McCorkell's "Keelings Naturally Fresh Garden" shows how food can be grown in an urban setting, while Barry Lupton's "Agraria" pays tribute to the farming landscape north of Dublin city. The garden of Naomi Coad-Maenpaa and Miriam Matthews, "Baltic to Burren", combines the birches of Scandinavia with the scree of Co Clare - and features a wood-fired sauna.

Gary Foran's "A Space Within" and Anne Kennedy's "Wirestring Quartet" are gardens that are designed for community use - reflecting the fact that more and more of us are living in apartments and high-density developments.

Susan Maxwell's "Oasis" is just that, a place of calm in an increasingly busy world, and is inspired by the enclosed courtyard gardens of Persia.

There are well over a dozen other gardens at Bloom, as well as at least 50 exhibitors in the nursery and floristry marquee. Sculpture in Context, the annual exhibition of outdoor art work, which takes place at the National Botanic Gardens, in Glasnevin, in September, will set up temporarily in Phoenix Park with 18 pieces, making this a truly eclectic event.

At the end of the month, on June 29th, another important garden festival opens, at the beautiful estate of Emo Court in Co Laois. The International Garden Festival runs for three months, which means that the gardens must have comparative longevity (a quarter of a year is an aeon in show-garden terms), which makes them more of a challenge to the designer - and more interesting to some visitors. The Co Laois event is in the same experimental mode as the established festivals at Chaumont-sur-Loire in France and at Westonbirt in England.

Designers from France, Italy, Portugal, the US, Germany and Australia will take part; flying the flag for Ireland are Marcus Flannery, Hugh Ryan, Gerard Mullen and a group of landscape-architecture students from University College Dublin.

Finally, a small horticultural event that takes place this week is the Garden Open Day at St Brigid's Girls School (The Park, Cabinteely, Dublin 18) next Friday, from 10.30am to 2pm. St Brigid's is one of the few Green Flag schools in Dublin, and the children there are advocates of biodiversity, believing in the important part that gardens play in maintaining a healthy environmental balance. The school's wild garden, which is managed organically, depends on donations raised on the open day. Visitors will be given a tour by experts from the sixth class. Who knows: perhaps there's a garden designer of the future among them?

Bloom continues at Phoenix Park, Dublin, until Monday, 10am-6pm each day; adults €20, concessions €10, family (two adults and three children) €45. See www.bloominthepark.com . The International Garden Festival is at Emo Court, Co Laois, from June 29th to September 23rd, 10am-6pm each day; adults €13, children €6, family (two adults and two children) €35. See www.igf.ie