BORD BIA’S BLOOM festival kicks off tomorrow at Phoenix Park in Dublin.
Rooted in sustainable living, the festival features gardens, flowers, food, and talks over the five days.
Now in its 18th year, the festival expects to welcome over 100,000 visitors over the five days.
The Marie Keating Foundation’s ‘Early Cancer Detection is Key’ garden will be one of 22 gardens launched at Bord Bia’s Bloom festival tomorrow.
This year’s garden marks the foundation’s sixth year participating in Bloom.
Dublin-based gardener David Gallagher designed the garden, in his third year at Bloom. The garden was produced in partnership with AstraZeneca, the pharamaceutical company that manufacture drugs to combat cancer, which has been a long-standing partner with the foundation.
Marie Keating, who the foundation was named for, died from breast cancer at the age of 51 in 1998. It was set up in her honour in 2001 by her son, Ronan Keating of Boyzone.
Speaking to The Journal, Gallagher explained how the garden was conceptualised to mirror the theme of early cancer detection.
“We’ve a meandering cobble path, which represents the cancer journey,” he said.
Stone columns symbolise the five most common cancers – breast, skin, bowel, lung, and prostate. At the unveiling of the garden today, five patient ambassadors representing each of these cancers were present.
A fire pit symbolises community for cancer patients. Duck cobble is utilised in the reflection space, which is surrounded by a rising and falling bank of natural Galway fieldstone.
Gallagher said that the garden was very much inspired by the Irish landscape, with rolling mounds.
“Planting wise, a lot of structure with ferns and grasses, very flowy, very meadowy, again, quite Irish. Pops of colour with perennials, agapanthus, verbascum viburnum, the steepers are really strong, flowing forms,” he said.
A sculpture, made from bog oak, stands at the left corner of the garden.
“As you walk around the path, you’re confronted by the sculpture, which represents hope,” he said. “And then a nice little coincidence, I think it kind of echoes the Marie Keating logo as well.”
CEO of the foundation, Liz Yeates, told The Journal that the early detection of cancer is a priority focus of the charity, which influenced the theme of the garden this year.
Yeates said that their message is “making cancer less frightening by enlightening.
I think through our garden, we’re able to do that. We’re able to bring that positivity and hope, provided it’s caught early, and that’s the whole theme.”
Yeates is a survivor of breast cancer, and Gallagher lost his mother to cancer when he was very young.
“We try to be positive and there’s a lot to be positive about because more and more people are coming out the other side, particularly if cancer is diagnosed early,” Yeates said. “However, there are dark moments and difficult moments.
The pathway culminates in the area that’s kind of representing community and support, such as organisations like that Marie Keating Foundation give to patients, and that positive aspect as well – that more people are surviving cancer.”
Gallagher said that there is a “lovely ecosystem” and community that evolves when working on the garden at Bloom.
“Everybody’s working late, everybody’s sharing tools, everybody’s helping each other with advice and deliveries and it just becomes this wonderful melting pot of everybody together in the same kind of process.”
He added that he was “proud” of the result of months of work sketching, planning, and planting the garden.
“It’s really connected with the sponsors, and just the level of work that’s gone in,” he extended his hands, cut and calloused, and laughed.
“Now’s the time to kind of step back and be proud and enjoy the next few days,” he said.
Visitors can visit the Marie Keating Foundation show garden, and the 21 others, from 30 May to 3 June at Bord Bia Bloom at Phoenix Park, Dublin.
Tickets are available here.
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