Clare Garden Festival highlights mental wellbeing

Fiann Ó Nualláin looks forward to one of the best weekends of the year

The annual Clare Garden Festival is well established on the horticultural calendar, running for the past seven years on the last Sunday in April (that’s next weekend) in the Ennis showgrounds.

Mixing expert talks and demos with gardening stands and food stalls and all that great vibe of springtime sprinkled with fun and educational extras for all ages, it makes for a real day out.

This year there are a few new editions to the show that are quite exciting — a fringe supported by Clare arts office and an overarching theme to the show and aspects of the fringe. The fringe brings the show out into the wider community and will mean mini-events happening in the week running up to the main event — various local business and groups get green-fingered or supportively floral for the occasion. If you are local to the event, you might be planning your own display or activity.

Ennis Library will be getting you up to speed on gardening as a hobby and as a healthy option with an especially interesting collection of nature and gardening books and a free garden expert talk on Tuesday, April 24, with Carl Wright of Caherbridge Garden. He will whet your appetite for the show with ‘12 months — 12 plants’.

Glór will be hosting some ticketed events and showing the award-winning and highly engaging docu-film Project Wild Thing by David Bond. I won’t spoil the ending, but it follows David on a journey to become the marketing director for nature and, with the help of some marketing experts, explores how to ‘sell’ nature to the 21st century. I know you will laugh, some of you might cry, but all will be entertained. Well worth a circle on the calendar.

Around the fringe at Glór, Marion Burke of Crann Og will giving a talk on the importance of making a connection with nature for both young and old. Brid Hedderman will be discussing the relevance of gardening in maintaining mental wellbeing. And there will be garden talks too, about how to get the best from your patch of land, including Jim Cronin delivering a masterclass on how to avoid pests, weeds, and diseases. Call Glór for more details on times and prices: 065 6843103.

So if you haven’t guessed already, the theme of this year’s Clare Garden Festival is ‘Gardening for Mental Wellbeing’. I will be attending as one of the guest speakers on the topic. It’s one close to my heart from many years working as a horticultural therapist, but also in how my own garden provides me with solace and joy as well as all the various healing herbs and medicinal plants I grow. Bring your question too.

My fellow speakers will all highlight how to make your garden a haven of peace, or a better place to find your health and wellbeing. They will include Bloom award-winning garden designer Tim Austen on mood boosting plants. Organic guru Jim Cronin will discuss organic gardening’s role in mental wellbeing, and Mary Keenan of Gash Gardens will offer some tips and plant selections to minimise your garden stresses.

I asked festival manager and founder Carmen Cronin about the theme: “Gardening in your own back garden and with others in a group, grounds us and gives us the opportunity to slow down from our hectic lives and to connect with nature.

“In gardening, a very gentle but very enriching experience can be found which has been proven to help those with mental health issues — it very much also calms us down on a daily basis supporting and improving our overall wellbeing.”

In keeping with that philosophy and outlook, this year a very special ‘garden for mental wellbeing’ will feature as a centrepiece of the show,

Supported by Bord Bia and Bloom, the garden has been designed by Clare designer and landscaper Manus McGee of Gáirdín Glas. The garden aims to mirror peace and tranquillity and Manus wants to encourage people to find joy and healthy living in their gardens.

The garden, of course, tells a bigger story through its design, but I won’t spoil it, go see it for yourself and maybe nick a trick or two for your own garden, back home.

Gary Graham, Bord Bia’s Bloom manager and judge on RTÉ’s Super Garden, will be unveiling the garden on the day and Manus will be on hand to discuss the intricacies of his design.

There will be fun activities for children and kids of all ages including myself, so here’s the checklist: Upcycling workshops, planting demos, expert talks, experts on site to brain-pick, hands-on crafts, archery, garden and outdoor charities, some community pop-up gardens, competitions and raffles, Irish Seed Savers, and an over 70’s garden, plant and food stalls. And all only €6 per person with free parking.

Clare Garden Festival is run by Clare Agricultural Show Society and is proudly supported by Blarney Castle Gardens, Clare County Council Environment Section; Clare Topsoil; Ennis Municipal District; Ennis Tidy Towns; Gee-Up Soil Enricher and Rowan Tree Cafe Bar.

For further details visit the festival website claregardenfestival.com and regular updates from facebook.com/claregardenfestival