Our Top 5 Buzzes From Bloom

The Bord Bia Bloom Festival is one of our favourite annual events to attend. After two years of virtual Blooms it was great to be back in the Phoenix Park. We reversed the wagon into place, powered up the electrics and started spreading crepe batter on the hot plate. It did us the world of good to see the crowds flow through the gates. With so many gardens and food producers on show, Bloom is our spiritual home.

From Michael D’s opening speech to the sea of spuds in the centre of the park, this year was all about biodiversity. We spent five days making fresh crepes and churros for the crowd of green fingered gardeners. Of course, whenever we got a break we had to explore, and this is what caught our eye.

1. The Kildare Gallery Sculptures

The first thing we saw when we arrived on Friday morning was the sculpture garden right next door to us. Surrounded by eye-popping orange marigolds, this was a beautiful mini-garden. A smooth pathway brought you through some weird and wonderful statues.

Like ourselves, the Kildare Gallery is a regular fixture at Bloom. While we only introduce a new filling every now and then, this year they unveiled 60 new sculptures. It was a real feast for the eyes. We spent the whole weekend arguing over which was our favourite. In the end the cute little mouse on the floating leaf defeated the exuberant diving lady.

2. The Postcard Gardens

Right across from us were the 11 mini gardens created by beginners. The Showcase Gardens might get all the press but we love the amateurism of the Postcard Gardens. Where else would you see undiluted imagination packed into 2m x 3m plots?

This year there were gardens from nine community groups and two schools. Our favourite was definitely the Biodiversity city made from twigs and recycled wood. Fair play to the students from Ardscoil La Salle in Raheny!

3. The Show Gardens

Nobody visits Bloom without checking out the Showgardens. They were a good bit away from us but we had to go and have a look each evening when the crowds left. There were 19 gardens. This year seemed gentler and softer to us with a lot more planting and a lot less hard landscaping. We loved this. Our favourites were all designed by first-timers to Bloom.

The Pathways to Home garden was a serene oasis of calm with Zen-like wooden pathways. The Sustainable Dairy Farm garden had a quaint farmhouse and lush grasses with cow sculpture. But our fave was definitely the Eureka Garden with the tin-roof cabin and stone water basin. Imagine sitting in one of those gardens and listening to the bees buzzing!

4. The Nursery Gardens

Our site was home to another new Bloom feature – the Outdoor Nursery Village. This was a retail area with beautiful displays from 18 plant nurseries. All the flowers had labels so you could choose which ones you wanted for your own garden. Top marks to the Plant Creche here. You could leave your new plants here and have them looked after while you explored the rest of Bloom. What a great idea!

5. The YouBloom Stage

It wasn’t all plants and gardens though. Under the shadow of the tower house, the Youbloom entertainment stage was the place to relax after walking your socks off. Or in our case, spinning crepes on a hot plate and dunking churros into sizzling oil. We climbed into hammocks. We relaxed on the airbeds. We tried to get into the retro Garda cars. We watched barbershop quartets and the Garda Band belt out show-tunes in the sunshine while we sipped coffee. Glorious!

What we missed

It was a busy few days so we could not see everything. We only caught glimpses of the Food market and the Bloom Inn. Same with the fresh produce market and the Quality Kitchen. We missed the milking and sheep shearing demonstrations. We were afraid to go near the Irish Craft Village in case we spent our earnings. But it all looked blooming buzzing.

We plan on returning next year to check out what we missed. In the meantime, if you need some churros or crepes for your next event, feel free to contact us.