Just ask Diarmuid
Irish garden designer Diarmuid Gavin is calling for people to get in touch with their gardening queries for a new TV series due to air on RTÉ and BBC in July. Filming is already underway for Gardening Together, a six-part series focusing on the rise of gardening during lockdown and what people have been planting in their back yards.
"I've been holed up at home like everybody for the past 10 weeks, but in these desperate times, like many people, I have found enormous comfort in my garden, by getting out there for a couple of hours every day, even to do the most menial of tasks – there are enormous mental health benefits," says the multi-award-winning garden designer, whose own garden in Co Wicklow was inspired by the tropics and features lush planting, giant bamboo and a plantation style verandah.
“I’d like to share my gardening therapy, as I like to call it, by designing and helping create a wide range of gardens in this series, all from my Wicklow garden, which I have been creating for the past five years.”
Gavin is asking gardeners to send in any queries they might have. So if you have a rose that's wilting or a tree that seems sickly or you just don't know where to start with the jungle outside the back door, get in touch by emailing gardening@waddellmedia.com.
Blooming lovely
Bring the garden inside with this fabulously floral armchair, which would work equally well in a traditional room scheme or a contemporary home needing an injection of colour. Made by sofa experts DFS, the Joules Cambridge armchair costs €899. Due to Covid-19, Due to Covid-19, there is high demand on deliveries – DFS is estimating a 14-week wait to get this to your door. See dfs.ie.
Garden meditation
Mount Congreve gardens in Co Waterford reopened to the public on June 9th, with social distancing guidelines in place throughout its 70-acre grounds and the shop/cafe. It is now planning a number of summer events, including yoga and meditation mornings, twilight tours of the gardens and a star-gazing evening during the annual Perseid meteor showers that take place in the skies above Ireland in August.
Yoga mornings take place on July 5th and August 9th for small groups and it is essential to book. Ticket holders will be able to enjoy guided yoga and meditation on the garden lawns with expert teachers from My Yoga Waterford and a guided silent woodland walk through the tranquil gardens. Tickets are available at mountcongreve.com
