Winners of 2025 Bord Bia Bloom festival revealed
The winners of the Bord Bia Bloom 2025 show garden competition taking place in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, were announced today (May 29).
The awards for both the best large and medium gardens at the festival went to designs that highlight the importance of recycling, repurposing, and the circular economy.
The overall large garden category award went to the Repak ‘Most Sorted’ garden, which was designed by James Purdy.
The winner of the overall medium garden category was the European Commission’s ‘Renewed Blooms’ garden, which was designed by David Negus.
A total of 19 medals, including eight gold medals, were awarded to show gardens in advance of the show opening to the public this morning.
The overall small garden winner was the ‘Pot Gallery’ garden, designed by Alan Rudden, which demonstrates how freestanding and vertical pots can create green spaces on terraces, roofs, or balconies.
The ‘Rainbow Brick Balcony’ garden designed by Limerick artist, Gary Kirwan as a tribute to LEGO, was the winner of the overall concept garden.
This garden was constructed from over 800,000 pieces of the toy over eight weeks, and will be reused at family-orientated events run by Brick Shows Ireland around the country.
The Bord Bia Bloom 2025 chief garden judge, Andrew Wilson said: “Each year we come to Bloom, the quality of the show gardens steps up an extra notch.
“The judging panel has been delighted by the range of ideas, the creativity, and the quality of the gardens this year. It’s especially great to see sustainable ideas at the fore.”
“We are seeing this with recycling, the choice of planting, and the reuse and repurposing of materials throughout the gardens."
“Visitors to Bloom will have a ball visiting the show gardens and are guaranteed to get some great ideas to take home,” Wilson added.
Bord Bia’s chief executive, Jim O’Toole has congratulated all the garden designers who won medals at the festival.
He said: “After months of hard work and planning, we are delighted to welcome our first visitors here this morning.
“I would like to congratulate all the medal winners whose creativity and expertise has been justly rewarded.
“Now the public can appreciate their inspiring horticulture displays over the next five days.”
The Bord Via chief executive said that the “action-packed schedule” for Bloom 2025 has “something for everyone, including over 300 performances and demonstrations across seven stages”.
“Visitors can pick-up gardening tips and tricks, advice on sustainable living; and try the best of Irish food and drink,” O’Toole said.
