Watch: Bloom festival set to welcome 100,000 people to five-day spectacular

Shauna Armstrong and five-year-old Eislish Funue at the Tusla sponsored garden at Bloom 2024. Picture: Mark Stedman

The country’s largest garden festival, Bloom, is returning for its 18th year at the Phoenix Park in Dublin.

More than 100,000 people are expected to attend the spectacular five-day event which will run until Monday.

Organisers have spent the past seven weeks working behind the scenes ahead of throwing open the doors at 9am on Thursday.

This year will see 22 show gardens on display, which consist of small, medium, and large sized displays and three feature pieces.

There is also a sculpture garden, and up to 70 food trucks dotted around the site.

Doireann Garrihy with Minions Kevin & Stuart at The Despicable Me 4 show garden. Picture: Kieran Harnett

RTÉ's Super Garden winner John Dooley, whose entry “Back to the Future” claimed the top spot on Tuesday night, has been a major attraction at the preview event on Wednesday.

Both John and his wife Elizabeth, from Castledermot in Co Kildare, said they wanted to merge “old style gardens with modern gardens”, with an emphasis on “pollinators”.

“If you see the back garden here its full of vegetables like our parents would have done. They grew every vegetable,” said Mr Dooley. “Then you have all of these flowers that are doing nothing for the environment.

“We want people to plant flowers that will come back the following year but will be a pollinator and attract the bees and be good for the environment."

His wife Elizabeth said she could not believe that they won the Super Garden prize and that she had “entered it last year without telling John”.

“I knew he could do it and he would be up for it,” she said.

“We are absolutely delighted, and everyone is coming up to us saying they wanted us to win. We have everything here. There are herbs, pollinators, veg, it’s all there, but John does all the designs, he’s very talented."

Kinsale designer Hendrik Lepel’s creation “Sun Harness Garden” was also a crowd-puller.

“My background is in permaculture which I studied in 2005 in Kinsale,” he said. “There is a lot of inspiration here and how we can capture the suns energy.

“This garden has three suntraps. One is a dry-stone wall facing south, during the night it is a slow-release heat, it’s good for plant growth and it is beneficial for Irish lizards which we need more of.

Eislish Funue, 5, and Harley Judge, 6 at Bloom. Picture: Mark Stedman

“The second sun trap is a south facing horseshoe shape faced planting scheme, and the sun rotating glass dome. It creates a sun lens, and it heats up and you can open it up or close it.” 

Also pulling in a crowd at the preview event was pop band B*Witched who entertained the attendees with their 1998 hit 'C'est La Vie'.

Head of Bord Bia Bloom Laura Doughlas said: “There is no other festival like this in Ireland. Whether you are a gardening enthusiast, a foodie or looking for a great day out there is something for everyone.

“We have 22 stunning show gardens, we have a fantastic selection of food and drink across the site.

“There is live entertainment, a children’s area and five stages with talks and demos over the five days all in the Phoenix Park.

“We are expecting more than 100,000 people and planning for the event started 12months ago. So, we spent seven weeks building the gardens and 700 people working on site, so we have to transform the whole site and then the gardens have to be returned to the way it was.

“The judging is taking place now and tomorrow morning the medals will be given out.

“Every garden tells its own unique story. There are environmentally conscious gardens to help biodiversity and gardens for amateur gardeners.”