Bord Bia Bloom 2024

In May, we visited the Bord Bia Bloom build to check out Nicola Haines’ Coming Home to Nature garden. This immersive show garden sponsored by Fingal County Council aimed to show developers how to design for biodiversity and manage stormwater in housing estates.

We visited on two occasions through the build to look at the drainage features - which included a green roof, rainwater harvesting, raingarden, pond, wetland and swale - and to supply a new material being used in research at UCD.

The drainage layer of the green roof contains a material supplied by SEL Environmental Ltd for a PhD research project in University College Dublin School of Civil Engineering. Nicola’s garden won FOUR awards including a gold medal, best in category for a large show garden, best construction and the sustainability award.