Multi-award-winning garden design studio.
Hit Pause
Overview- Award-Winning Show Garden
Design – Bloom
Location: Bloom Flower Show, Phoenix Park, Dublin
Hit Pause is an award-winning show garden created for Bloom in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. Designed as a calm and contemplative landscape, the garden combines contemporary planting with carefully crafted materials to create a space that encourages visitors to slow down, reflect and reconnect with nature. This was our garden entry for the Bloom Flower Show for Caragh Nurseries. The design was inspired by the new found appreciation for our gardens and outdoor spaces which many of us have discovered during the the past two difficult years. As we were forced to hit pause on our lives, it awakened in many of us a creativity and a lust for all things outdoor like never before. Our garden aimed to encourage that new found enthusiasm by demonstrating some of the key principles of good design which can be employed to enhance any space. Principles such as simplicity of palette, repetition, use of colour, form, and texture. The design asks you to consider a garden as not just a collection of plants, but as a symbiosis between the natural world and our man-made environments.
The garden featured a large formal reflection pond which is traversed via two staggered boardwalks which guide you through the garden. This led you to a polished concrete patio, carefully detailed with copper to provide the perfect place to sit and watch the world go by.
This project forms part of our wider portfolio of contemporary and award-winning garden design projects across Ireland.
Concept Drawings
Structured planting and clipped box hedging frame the copper Synapse sculpture in Andrew Christopher Garden Design’s award-winning Bloom show garden.
Copper detailing of the water rill flowing through black polished cobbles within this contemporary show garden.
Reflections shimmer across the copper water rill as it feeds the central reflection pool.
Millboard composite boardwalks cross the reflection pool leading visitors through the planting and sculpture.
The boardwalk guides visitors towards a secluded seating area framed by clipped box hedging and layered planting.
Cool woodland planting beneath multi-stem Zelkova trees creates a calm retreat within the garden.
A rich mix of grasses and perennials including salvia, astrantia and Briza media create seasonal movement and colour.
Composite boardwalks weave through planting beds set within Lake Garda limestone garden walls.
Andrew Christopher with President Michael D. Higgins and Sabina Higgins visiting the Best in Show garden at Bloom in Dublin.
Reflection pool framed by Lake Garda limestone walls and charred larch boundary cladding with copper detailing.
The “magic wall” reveals copper detailing gradually as visitors move through the garden.
Polished concrete stepping stones reflect the copper Synapse sculpture within the water feature.
Close-up of the copper water rill running into the reflection pool within the show garden.
Staggered boardwalk pathways with copper detailing lead through layered planting beds.
Textured copper surfaces create a striking visual contrast with the polished water channel.
The Synapse sculpture by Verna Studio forms the artistic focal point of the garden.
Fine copper detailing is integrated into the polished concrete paving throughout the garden.
The water rill cuts through contemporary stone walls clad in Lake Garda limestone.
Sedum planting woven through the stone wall softens the architectural structure.
Polished concrete paving with copper inlays creates a refined contemporary terrace.
This garden received a Gold Medal and the coveted Best in Show award at the Bloom Flower Show in Dublin.