Accessories for your Garden: some ideas from Bloom – Mary Hackett

Bord Bia put on a great show at Bloom in the Phoenix Park last weekend with gardens and growers, an ever-expanding food experience and an arts and crafts village. My imagination was caught by some rather fabulous garden accessories.

Garden designer Patricia Tyrrell has a wonderful eye for detail. Designer of the Plant Lover’s garden in Bord Bia’s Easy Steps to Dream Gardens initiative, at Bloom 2025 she used the Gardener’s Sofa from Nordic Elements Outdoor Collection nordicelements.com in combination with the Läckö patio table/chair from IKEA. The gorgeous shepherd’s hut garden shed was made in Co. Offaly by Willow Garden Buildings willowgardenbuildings.ie.

Alan Rudden who knows a few things about garden design is about to launch The Alan Rudden Collection of hand-crafted pots. At Bloom he used his ceramic and concrete pots to ‘green-up’ a patio/balcony space in a Small Show Garden. I was intrigued by the range of pot shapes and sizes in the collection. The Alan Rudden Studio will open in Ballycoolin Road, Blanchardstown at the end of June. The pot showroom will be open to the public by appointment. Watch for developments at alanrudden.ie.

Who doesn’t love a fluffy dandelion seedhead? Quite a few gardeners, I hear you howl. Well, look at this sculpture from Linda McKeown’s garden for the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Linda says it tells the story of the garden and the charity perfectly and I agree with her. The sculptor was John Horgan and the piece was sourced through Ruth Liddle at The Kildare Gallery thekildaregallery.ie. Linda is a member of the GLDA and you’ll find her at blueleafgardendesign.com.

Oliver and Liat Schurmann’s organic garden at Bloom was guarded by Con Mór, the ancient giant of Ireland’s western edge, ferocious yet gentle descendant of the Tuatha Dé Dannan. A creation of the Machnas troupe from Galway, this is a garden gnome with presence. I’m putting my order in now! Keep an eye on Machnas’ plans at www.machnas.com and rather less dramatically you’ll find Oliver and Liat at mountvenusnursery.com

I’m on the lookout for perfect potters, marvellous metal workers and the kind of garden salvage experiences we drive miles for. Let me know of anyone in your locality and I’ll share your secret with the world.

Mary Hackett
Associate editor RHSI Journal