We're still reeling (and recovering from) what feels like a real highlight for our little  business this year... Bloom baby!

We had such craic running a HB tent at Bord Bia Bloom over the June bank holiday and we also had the pleasure (and panic!) of speaking on the Garden Stage twice over the festival weekend. 

Many of us in HB attend Bloom every year as punters, and we could not believe our luck when we were invited to apply to attend this year, with our own tent in the nursery village. 

We went through so many iterations of what our tent would look like inside, how we would create some impact and enjoyment for people (on a budget), and how we'd pull it all together. In the end, we decided to create a mini version of our beloved shop.

We painted it in the same colours as our shop, built a living wall and added a HB icon popping out (kindly made by Conor from The Bearded Man), and added a gorgeous velvet blue 'Shaw' sofa from our friends at pieces.ie in front to complete the set up. 

We had two days to put the tent together, load in all of the plants, price everything and get ready for judging and the opening the following day. It was utter chaos, but we had lots of help from partners, friends and family thankfully.

On Thursday morning we got the best surprise finding out we had been awarded a gold medal. It was such a cool experience chatting to the judges and hearing their feedback (both good and bad!). They've judged so many shows across Ireland and the UK, it was an honour to speak with them and hear what they had to say.

We also had the great opportunity to speak on the garden stage twice, on the topic of tips for styling houseplants in interior design. 

The festival runs for five days and around twenty three thousand people attend every day. It is full on and loads of fun. The show gardens are spectacular and the food options are divine.  We were very lucky to have some blazing sunshine too. 

Thank you so much if you stopped by and visited us! We really enjoyed meeting lots of new customers from all over, and seeing some familiar faces too.

If you'd like to see more of Bloom 2023, check out our instagram reel here for a little snapshot of all the craic.

Fingers crossed, we hope to be attending again next year!

x HB