Cluain Lir Forget Me Not Garden ready for Bloom

Residents, staff, families and friends of Cluain Lir Community Nursing Unit are thrilled to learn that their garden design entitled ‘Forget Me Not’ has been selected for the Postcard Garden category of this year’s Bord Bia Bloom in the Phoenix Park.

Forget Me Not is an old style ‘potager’ garden, planted with flowers, vegetables and fruit trees that are intended to evoke memories of kitchen gardens of the past that provided food alongside a feast of colour for the eyes and scents for the soul.

The garden will incorporate artworks made by residents alongside photographs of their hands at work, planting, painting and reading.

Residents of Cluain Lir Community Nursing Unit live with many aspects of ageing, including dementia, and the garden is designed as a focal point to evoke memories and conversation about times past and to maintain a connection for residents to the gardens they loved and tended over the years.

Project coordinator and keen gardener, Carol Hayden, said: “it is a huge honour to be accepted into this wonderful event. We’re embracing it and looking forward to taking the residents garden from a small corner of Mullingar to a prestigious national stage. It’s very exciting.”

Resident artist Lucy Tormey said they are delighted to have an opportunity to show the work that happens in Cluain Lir. “The project has received a lot of support from Bord Bia Bloom, Tirlán Country Living, Glenfern Garden Centre, Dulux Ireland and Woodie's to help us and we’re extremely grateful to them,” she said.

Forget Me Not will be on display in the Postcard Garden section of Bord Bia Bloom in the Phoenix Park from Thursday May 30 to June 3.