The newest festival to take place in the Midlands is a unique celebration of gardening and nature. The Festival of Gardens and Nature will take place in the beautiful surroundings of Ballintubbert Gardens and House in County Laois on the weekend of 20th and 21st April 2024. Garden designer Catherine FitzGerald has teamed up with Minnie Preston of Ballintubbert Gardens and House to create a two-day festival of talks, workshops, organic cooking, garden tours, foraging classes and more. It is all about discovering the latest ideas for creating an ecologically sustainable and beautiful garden in their launch year.
The festival brings together a hugely diverse group of speakers from the worlds of contemporary garden design, horticulture, historic gardens, and nature conservation.
The event will take place in the beautiful Arts and Crafts style gardens of Ballintubbert House, birthplace of poet Cecil Day Lewis and former home of the actor John Hurt.
Subjects include: Meadows, the creation of natural swimming ponds, sustainable floral design, biodynamic vegetable growing, the healing effect of horticulture, the power of scent, and the joy of colour in the garden. The emphasis will be the importance of gardening with nature rather than against it. The programme will include informal conversations as well as more structured talks accompanied by images and a useful “Gardener’s Question Time” style panel will answer audience’s gardening dilemmas on Sunday morning.
The line-up of speakers features well-known Irish and international names including Cath Kidston, Shane Connolly, Rory O’Connell, Manchan Magan, Dominic West, Jimi Blake, Fionnuala Fallon, Johnny Flynn, TJ Maher, Kitty Scully, Seamus O’Brien, Neil Porteous, John Little, Jonny Bruce, Tom Petherick, The Land Gardeners, Colm O’Driscoll, Sadie Chowen, David Maxwell, Arthur Shackleton, Edward Shackleton, Darach Lupton, Amelia Raben, David Butler, Kate Gatacre and Catherine FitzGerald.
There will be guided garden tours and floristry; foraging workshops; stalls will be selling plants and tempting quality garden related goods – from pots to gardening apparel, books and tools to the newly launched C.Atherley sweet geranium products from Cath Kidston. There will be artisanal food trucks, quality organic coffee and sweet treats.
Day and weekend tickets are available now from the festival website https://festivalofgardensandnature.com/
