Twenty-Seven Trees for Twenty-Seven Countries: Bloom at Twenty
The garden that won the concept category at Bloom's twentieth festival was planted with one tree for every EU member state. Plus the twenty-year-old who won Super Garden, and Kerry's three-time Chelsea gold medallist.
A herbaceous border. Photo: Theo Laflamme / Unsplash.
Bord Bia Bloom turned twenty this year. The garden that won the concept category was planted with twenty-seven trees, one for every member state of the European Union, and it took gold as well.
Here is who actually won at Bloom 2026, and the two Irish gardening stories worth carrying into the autumn.
BLOOM 2026
The twentieth festival
DATES
28 May–1 June
Phoenix Park, Dublin, over the June bank holiday weekend.
GOLD MEDALS
11
Across the festival.
MEDALS IN ALL
50
19 show garden, 17 Nursery Village, 14 Postcard Garden.
NEXT YEAR
3–7 June
Bloom 2027, Phoenix Park.
Source: Bord Bia.
The winners
SHOW GARDENS
Bloom 2026 category winners
Large
Recycled, Reused and Refilled Sculptural Garden — James Purdy, sponsored by Repak.
Medium
Future in Mind — Joe Eustace, for the Mental Health Commission.
Concept
Shared Roots, Common Shade — Oliver and Liat Schurmann, for the European Commission.
Small
I Can Create That Garden with Q102 — Carleen Osborne.
Balcony
The Birdwatcher’s Balcony Garden — Barry Kavanagh, for RTÉ Radio 1’s Mooney Goes Wild.
Sustainable
Fingal Nurturing Communities Through Nature — Áit Urbanism + Landscape, for Fingal County Council.
The Schurmanns’ garden took both a gold medal and the overall concept award. Twenty-seven trees, twenty-seven member states.
AT BLOOM
On the record
“We are absolutely delighted that our work has found such recognition.”
OLIVER AND LIAT SCHURMANN
“This award honours Ireland’s membership of the European Union by recognising the value of working together with our neighbours.”
PETER POWER, EUROPEAN COMMISSION IN IRELAND
“Twenty years on from the first Bloom, it is remarkable to see how the festival continues to evolve while remaining true to its core purpose.”
JIM O’TOOLE, CEO, BORD BIA
The twenty-year-old who won Super Garden
Sean Melia, twenty, from Summerhill in Co. Meath, won RTÉ’s Super Garden 2026 — the youngest winner in the programme’s history. His “Urban Jungle” design used a raised timber platform, Egyptian limestone panels, a water rill and coloured glass panels, built on a €15,000 budget in three weeks for a new Meath County Council social housing development in Ashbourne, and recreated at Bloom.
His father Dermot competed on Super Garden in 2020. The family is reported as nine generations of horticulturists.
“I can’t believe it’s come true, it honestly doesn’t feel real yet.”
Sean Melia, Super Garden 2026 winner
The Kerry man with three Chelsea golds
The most decorated Irish exhibitor of the decade is not a garden designer at all. Billy Alexander runs Kells Bay Gardens in Cahersiveen, Co. Kerry, and grows ferns.
In 2025 he took a gold medal and the President’s Award at RHS Chelsea for Wilde Kells Bay Gardens — 120 square metres and over a hundred fern species, transported from Cahersiveen to London. It was his third Chelsea gold, after 2021 and 2023. In 2023 he also took Best Exhibit in the Great Pavilion. In 2024 he was awarded the Lawrence Medal, the RHS’s highest honour for an exhibitor.
“It takes a huge amount of work to protect the plants, get them looking their best and to transport them safely all the way from Cahersiveen to Chelsea.”
Billy Alexander, Kells Bay Gardens
And the small growers
The Irish Specialist Nurseries Association list is the best directory of small Irish growers there is: Kilmurry Nursery and Camolin Potting Shed in Wexford, Mount Venus Nursery and Rare Plants Ireland in Dublin, Gash Gardens in Laois, Shady Plants in Waterford, Esker Farm Daffodils in Tyrone, Coosheen Plants and Tantalus in Cork, Boyne Garden Centre in Meath.
It is a more interesting shopping list than any garden centre aisle, and most of them will still post you something in September.
HOW THIS PIECE WAS SOURCED
Bloom 2026 dates, medal counts and category winners are from Bord Bia’s own announcement; the Schurmann and Peter Power quotes are via the European Commission Representation in Ireland. Sean Melia’s win is from RTÉ, 28 May 2026. Billy Alexander’s Chelsea record is from the RHS, RTÉ (20 May 2025) and TheJournal. The nursery list is the Irish Specialist Nurseries Association’s own membership roster.
We have not printed a Bloom attendance figure. The number circulating in trade coverage is “over 90,000”, but we could not confirm it on Bord Bia’s own site and Bloom has historically drawn larger crowds, so we would rather print nothing than print a figure we cannot stand over. We also make no claim about Irish participation at Chelsea 2026 in either direction.
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