Our favourite show gardens from Bord Bia Bloom 2025

If you've been to Bord Bia Bloom before, you'll know just how inspiring it can be - and this year was no different. 

Here's a round up of my favourite show gardens from this year's festival:

Louise Checa's from LCLA Landscapes 'Downsizers' show garden. This was one of the medium sized gardens but man did it pack a crazy amount in.

I was lucky to catch Louise for a quick chat on the media day and she gave me a quick tour too. 

At the heart of the garden is a huge evergreen Oak tree. This is a rare beauty as importing Oak trees to Ireland is hugely restricted due to the spread of Oak Processionary Moth. Louise and her team managed to find a very mature one grown at a nursery in Kildare to feature in the show garden. Doesn't it look like it's been there forever though?

Also, look down at the foreground and notice the suspended metal grate pathway. This was so fun to discover. Planted underneath the suspended walkway were ferns and other shade loving foliage plants. 

This impressive Agelica plant was a real bee magnet.

 I didn't realise until Louise told me that Angelica is a native wildflower that is also edible. I need to find a spot in my garden for one of these! Structural and a vibrant green, it looks perfect at the back of the garden with the brick wall.

The garden also featured an outdoor kitchen and seating area, and a terrazzo patio with the sponsor's logo subtly carved into it. The planting is calming and has lots of movement and texture. Key plants included angelica, purple scabiosa and some gorgeous linaria purpurea 'Dial park' threaded through waves of ferns, grasses and evergreen mounts of pine. Delicious.

Also, look at the very cool wooden fin corner seat!

Huge congratulations to Louise and all of the team that worked on the garden. I can't imagine the months of labour and thought that went into creating something so beautiful that is also just so settled in place too. They won a Gold medal and Best in Show, so well deserved. You can check out professional pictures of the garden here. 

Next up is this large show garden by James Purdy. I think I circled back to this garden three times! I enjoyed walking through it so much, it was lush and enveloping. It felt very 'foresty' due to the number of large trees framing it and you just felt transported to another place. It had a cool pathway that crossed over channels of water at multiple points. 

When you looked into the water, there were slates or something lining the 'rived bed', and it looked so tranquil and settled. There was a very welcoming seating area, at the centre of which was a raised pond or water trough which was gorgeous to look at when you were taking a seat. 

There were buttery white geums I had never seen before which I want to track down (at least I think that's what they were!?).

The planting scheme of white and pink foxgloves, pink astrantia, dark purple salvia popping up here and there and lots of ferns and grasses and mounds of shrubs was just so impactful as well as calming.

There were subtle nods to the sponsor of the garden, in the form of sunken glass bottles dotted along the winding paths, and tin can structures peeking out from behind the planting. 

I was delighted to hear this stunning garden won a gold medal, it was an absolute joy to explore. The planting felt so considered, a bit different and so well put together. There are far fancier photos than mine available here if you would like to see more of this gorgeous garden. 

In the unlikely event that someone from the Bord Bia Bloom team is reading this haha...

 

... I would LOVE if the poster for each show garden listed some of the key plants within the scheme. Even the common names, it wouldn't have to be full long as* latin! Also a short blurb on the landscape designers would be amazing please and thank you haha. 

Fair play if you have scrolled this far! The last garden I want to mention here is The Pot Gallery Garden by Alan Rudden.

Go on over to his instagram and check out the garden - I am absolutely raging but I only took video shots of his garden and have just a few photos to share here.
 

Alan has won many a gold medal at Bloom and took another gold away this year too. You can see why! It was a small garden, but it felt colossal in person. It was so high! A gorgeous living wall with burnt timber (I think), was the stunning back drop. The patio floor was like a piece of art too...

So green and lush. Some lovely iris popping up and foxgloves too. Heavenly. There's lots more to see of this garden here on the Bord Bia Bloom website too. 

If I had to round up any common threads or themes or dare I say 'trends' from the gardens I loved this year, I think I would say my favourite gardens has a calming effect. Less of an onslaught of jewel tones, and more like palettes of softness - whites and light pinks with punchier colours just slightly peeking through. 

Whites and buttery yellows for the win. Understated? 

A nod to edible plants and native plants like the angelica.

Trees gorgeous trees.

Anyway, enough rambling and a huge thank you and congratulations to Kerrie Gardner and the Bord Bia Team that work so hard to make these show gardens happen so that we can all enjoy them so much. Congrats on another stunning year and we look forward to Bloom 2026!