First 5 Garden of Wonder and Discovery at Bloom to promote children’s outdoor play
Roderic O’Gorman, Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, today unveiled the theme of the show garden sponsored by his department at Bord Bia Bloom this June Bank Holiday Weekend in the Phoenix Park, Dublin.
 
The ‘First 5 Garden of Wonder and Discovery’ will be a place where young children, their parents, families and carers have an open-ended invitation to play in the natural world enticing children through the garden and down pathways of wonder and discovery.
 
The garden will also provide an example of good practice in the design of external spaces that support children’s learning, well-being and development.
Previous Bloom award-winning garden designers, Oliver and Liat Schurmann of Mount Venus Nursery, Rathfarnham, Dublin worked on the design with 20 ‘garden consultant’ children from Creative Kids & Co Pre-School in Walkinstown.
 
The result of this collaboration – the children’s creativity and the Schurmanns’ passion for and expertise in designing show gardens – is the ‘First 5 Garden of Wonder and Discovery’, which evokes the magical atmosphere of a natural and untouched woodland.