Diarmuid Gavin launches Irish Sky Garden at Chelsea Flower Show

FLOATING ISLAND OVER CHELSEA

Diarmuid Gavin launches Irish Sky Garden

at Chelsea Flower Show

Celebrity gardener Diarmuid Gavin is set to shake up the tranquil world of gardening at this year’s famous RHS Chelsea Flower Show with his amazing ‘Irish Sky Garden’ – a unique creation that floats above the ground and overlooks the River Thames in London.

The ‘Hanging Gardens of Chelsea’ will include a  16 meter long  garden pod which will be raised up to a height of 25 meters with the aid of a giant crane, making it the first floating garden at the Chelsea Flower Show and providing a birds-eye-view of the whole event.

Twenty- five circular pools will be chequered across the surface of the garden, that will reflect the hanging garden suspended in the pod above, and set within the 40m×18m plot, making it the largest area ever to be allocated for any single garden at the Chelsea Flower Show. 

The garden’s pod - constructed out of steel – will be covered in grasses and plants. Ground level garden will combine waves of buxus, taxus, grasses, and bamboos while beautiful specimen cone trees of Carpinus betulus ‘Fastigiata’ and a forest of Betula pendula will define the garden space and shape, drawing the eye to different areas of the landscape. 

Inspired by Oscar-winning Dublin animator Richie Baneham, who created the visual effects for Avatar and Tim Burton’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Edward Scissorhands - Diarmuid Gavin’s sky garden will be a spectacular floating Eden suspended above the heads of the spectators, set within a rolling Irish landscape.

Likened to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Irish Sky Garden is a celebration of contemporary garden design that encapsulates Irish flair for creativity and craftsmanship into a stunning visual display of character and imagination, creating an exciting and interactive garden that is both dramatic and inspiring to its visitors. 

Irish ingenuity has played an important part in the creation of the garden.  Supported by Fáilte Ireland, and Cork City Council, Diarmuid has specifically selected a range of local home-grown Irish manufacturers and suppliers. From Arup of Dublin – the structural engineers , the steel fabricators - Nugent’s from Co Kildare; birch trees from Cork to the  talented group of Irish people who physically build this stunning show garden.

Diarmuid commented: “The best thing about creating this garden is working with a group of my closest friends and  craftsmen, each specialising in their own field of  plants, metal work and joinery,   who all came over to London to show the world some Irish magical imagination”

The Irish Sky Garden is expected to be a focal point of interest for visitors to this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show, and will sit alongside 18 spectacular Show Garden designs.

The event takes place in the grounds of the Royal Hospital, from Tuesday May 24th to Saturday May 28th 2011.

Following on from London’s Chelsea Flower show, the Irish Sky Garden will then be transported to Cork, to be set within Cork’s Mid-Summer Festival from 11-26th June 2011.

The pod along with certain elements of the garden will then be relocated and re-built alongside the River Lee as part of a permanent redevelopment project featuring a proposed new park for the city, which the public will be able to visit free of charge from early July.

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