Festival preview: What’s coming up at this year’s Bloom?
With just 16 weeks to go to our 20th edition of Bloom, plans are hotting up for this year’s festival. Once again, we will have a dazzling display of glorious gardens to delight you, with exciting designs from some of your favourite Bloom alumni, plus a number of talented new designers joining us for the first time in 2026.
Among them is Joshua Fenton, who designed the silver-gilt medal-winning C6 Container Garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show last year. Joshua is designing a flexible family garden for Citroën Ireland, a multifunctional space that can adapt and evolve with the changing needs of a growing family.
Also new to Bord Bia Bloom is this year’s Cultivating Talent winner, Jack Donovan, who impressed Bloom’s Show Garden assessment panel with his design for ‘Alltar’, a garden which will celebrate the overlooked ecologies that arise in the gaps, margins and pauses of a city. Inspired by Gilles Clément’s theory of the Third Landscape, the design treats abandoned ground, not as waste but as a reservoir of biodiversity. Jack will now receive funding and mentorship to help him deliver his first Show Garden at the festival.
Along with our new designers, we are excited to welcome several new Show Garden sponsors to Bloom 2026. Multiple Myeloma Ireland is exhibiting for the first time with a Medium Show Garden, ‘Rooted in Resilience’, designed by David Negus. This is David’s second Bloom Show Garden and follows his gold medal-winning ‘Renewed Blooms’ Garden for the European Commission which won Best Medium Show Garden last year.
Met Éireann will also debut in the Show Gardens arena. Designers Paul Dunne and Padraic Woods are creating a special garden to mark 90 years of the Irish meteorological service. It will illustrate Ireland’s changing climate.
Stage presence
Away from the Show Gardens, there’s plenty to entertain and enthral you this year. Some of your favourite presenters are set to return to Bloom’s stages, with television presenters Diarmuid Gavin and Adam Frost headlining the Garden Stage once again. They’ll be joined by Marie Staunton, Kitty Scully and more.
The hugely popular Seafood Kitchen is back following its successful debut in 2025. Trisha Lewis will serve up another entertaining mix of delicious seafood demos, tips, and chats. On the Dunnes Stores Quality Kitchen Stage you can expect to see crowd-favourites Neven Maguire and Donal Skehan, plus some exciting new talent.
Meanwhile on the Sustainable Living Stage, sponsored by Certa Ireland, sustainability journalist, Jo Linehan; food policy advisor, Ruth Hegarty; and nature restoration expert, Matt Smith, are among an exciting line-up planned for the festival.
And finally, keep an eye out for Bloom’s exciting new Wellness Village! Details will be announced soon… Stay tuned to the Bord Bia Bloom newsletter and our social channels @BordBiaBloom for more exciting news and updates over the coming months, and don’t forget to book your tickets. Our special Early Bird offer ends next month so be quick!
