Master My Garden Podcast
Master My Garden Podcast
-EP263 GLDA Seminar 2025 " Resilient Gardens & Landscapes" With Kinta Oaks & Deirdre Prince
Discover the secrets to creating sustainable and resilient gardens and landscapes as we welcome esteemed guests Deirdre Prince from Dublin City Council and Kinta Oakes, chairperson of the GLDA. We chat about the 2025 GLDA seminar themed "Resilient Gardens & Landscapes"
Learn how their unique experiences provide valuable insights into integrating biodiversity with landscape design, and how these practices contribute to ecological resilience. We chat about the expert speakers who will be at the seminar and what it means to design with nature in mind.
Join us as we explore transformative shifts in drainage and landscape architecture. Say goodbye to outdated rapid water diversion methods and hello to innovative solutions like green roofs and rain gardens. We'll uncover how these practices are not only essential for managing urban stormwater but also critical in enhancing our collective resilience against extreme weather events. Discover how small changes, like choosing the right plants, can have a big impact on our environment.
Finally, we challenge traditional notions of beauty in public green spaces. Learn how letting grass grow longer and embracing native wildflower meadows are revolutionizing landscapes into thriving habitats for wildlife. Through stories from places like Phoenix Park, we discuss the importance of community education in appreciating the untamed beauty of these spaces. Tune in for a seminar preview that promises thought-provoking discussions and practical takeaways on making our gardens and landscapes more resilient and ecologically conscious.
This seminar promises to be a superb day of learning and networking with people who will build resilient gardens and landscape for the future. You can purchase your tickets here:
If there is any topic you would like covered in future episodes, please let me know.
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Until next week
Happy gardening
John
how's it going, everybody, and welcome to episode 263 of master, my garden podcast. Now, this week's episode is going to be a good one. It's about an upcoming seminar, the glda seminar, which happens every year in february, and we've spoke about it on the podcast before, and every year in February, and we've spoke about it on the podcast before, and every year they have a different team. I think the last time we chatted it was in relation to it could have been two years ago for that seminar and I think it was in relation to sort of gardening and designing more in harmony with nature. And this year's seminar has an interesting team. So it's resilient gardens and landscapes is the overriding team on it, and there's some really really good speakers on the day.
Speaker 1:So ann marie powell, many of you be familiar with, adam whitburn, charlotte hitchmott, who I'm not actually familiar with, wendy allen and henrik stohmann, again not familiar with all of the speakers, but some of them I know and, yeah, some excellent speakers, but the overriding team is Resilient Gardens and Landscapes and that's you know. That's going to be really interesting. So the seminar is on the 22nd of February. It's in the Crowne Plaza in Dublin and to chat about it I'm delighted to be joined by two of the members of the GLDA. So Deirdre Prince, who works in the Parks Department in Dublin I think you said, deirdre, was it Dublin City Council? Yes, dublin City Council. So yeah, we might chat about that in a minute as well and Kinta Oakes, who's a chairperson of the GLDA at the moment. So both very, very welcome to Mastering Garden Podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thanks very much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, as I said, we've we spoke with the seminar in the past and mentioned it last year and then we had a kind of a more in-depth episode on us two years ago. But this year's, this year's team is quite interesting and I think that you know some of the speakers there are excellent, so it's going to be good. But maybe before we get into that, just give us a quick overview of you, what you do yourselves. So, kinta, you're your current chairperson, so tell us about your, your own, your own design business and also your, your role and the glda's role, I guess you know within the, within the landscape here in ireland uh, well, I have a.
Speaker 3:I brought a sport practice with my husband, who's an architect in bray, and combination yep, yep he does the inside and I do the outside, just with my husband who's an architect in Bray, nice combination.
Speaker 3:Yep, yep, he does the inside and I do the outside. What I'm most impressed with recently I do a lot of planning permission applications and the councils are now asking with each application that you have a landscape design with it. And then you try and do your best with biodiversity and sustainability, looking after the water, planting native plants as much as you can. With the GLDA, I've been with them for six years on council and working on the Compass magazine as part of the editorial team, but we generally are an organization that is for garden designers, horticulturists and landscape architects, designers, and the membership is open to anyone who's interested in gardens or garden design. And there's a varying range of memberships as well within the GLDA, so you can be a corporate member, you can be a friend, you can be a professional member, which you have to apply for with your portfolio, and there's also student membership as well, so it's anybody who has an interest, as I said, in gardens, garden design, landscape architecture.
Speaker 1:Brilliant, and what's the sort of overall aim, stroke, goal or mission statement of the GLA generally?
Speaker 2:Our mission statement, I suppose, would be to develop an awareness of good garden and landscape design and to support garden and landscape designers in their work. So what it is is a really good network of individual practices. So most of the practices are just sole traders, but there's a network of support and knowledge sharing between the GLDA members which.
Speaker 2:I think, supports the work and also, I suppose, it supports how important garden and landscape design is, you know, from an environmental point of view as much as anything else, you know. So it's a really good organization for that, you know. So we are quite supportive of each other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the seminars over the last few years have been, you know, the overriding themes have been about how landscapes are designed. Gardens are designed in harmony with nature and, I suppose, you know, taking into account change in climate and all those type of things. So, and this year's team seems to be kind of no different, you know it's it's building resilient gardens for the future, I guess, and resilient landscapes for the future. So maybe we'll we'll start to chat about this year's seminar, which is obviously coming up in a couple of weeks time, and I guess, deirdre, with your work in Dublin City Counties, there's probably aspects that will translate to how they go about their business on a day-to-day basis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I suppose the themes over the last few years have become a little more um environmental and climate aware um themes, um, and I think it's just expressing the how important um our work is in in contributing to that.
Speaker 2:But so gardens and landscapes are just not nice to have or nice to look at. There's uh it it's showing the different layers of of how um important they are from an ecological point of view, from a climate resistance point of view, um, or pollution control, uh. So it's all those layers that uh are hidden under the aesthetics, and so that's why I think our teams have changed a little bit over the years to reflect that, obviously, we're all plant and garden and landscape enthusiasts. We love nothing better than beautiful pictures of gardens, but it's explained, explained the environmental benefits of what we're doing is really important, I suppose, of my work.
Speaker 2:I'm a landscape architect in Double City Council Parks Department and my work is predominantly based on adapting inner city built up areas to be more climate resilient, to maybe depave areas to allow to open up more areas for sustainable urban drainage, planting trees to mitigate particulate matter or remove particulate matter from the air, create a pollination-friendly space. So a lot of my work day-to-day is based on this, and so I think one of the things that's really important about our teams, of our seminars, is that we're bringing all of this to our network of members and delegates. It's a part of my day-to-day work and it's come, it's in my dna now at this stage, I think, but it's um, it's to try and share that knowledge and and uh and all like to learn. Every time we have a seminar, it's an opportunity to learn and then we've got really great experts on um on it, you know. So that it that's that's what's really interesting. It's also really invigorating to hear other people from all over the world who are just as passionate about landscape design and environmental impacts as we are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's brilliant and just in relation to your work with Dublin City Council, there's huge work goes on in in all the cities around the world with with different each, each landscape, the person in your in your role. In other cities they might have different sort of priorities. Let's say, um, I know that cooling in certain cities is massive and using trees as a to have a cooling effect within cities is huge. Would you say that the flood and excess water is probably the biggest challenge in Ireland, or do you come across these challenges of overheating and needing to cool areas?
Speaker 2:I suppose you know, historically we probably would never have considered the heat island effect in Dublin specifically as being an issue. But I think as our climate is changing and our summers are becoming hotter and drier, the need for cooling areas is becoming more of an issue. But I think in Dublin and in Ireland the flooding is a huge concern, particularly in built-up areas in the city where the drain system is there for a long period of time. Drain system is there for a long period of time as it has to cope with more and more rainwater runoff as we seal up more and more of our land, which just exacerbates the risk of running into our rivers and seas, our polluted drains. Hopefully I think we may have reached a changing point or a tipping point where we are starting to realise that covering over our front gardens or sealing them all in and creating huge swathes of paved areas that that's contributing to this increase in rainwater runoff that we are now having.
Speaker 2:That's a challenge that we have in the city. So you know, now, drainage engineers, when I go to a drainage engineer's presentation, it looks more like a landscape proposal than it ever did before, whereas you know, I was an architect, I trained as an architect originally never did before, whereas you know, I, I was an architect. Uh, I trained as an architect originally and, um, um, my, the guiding principle, um, in architecture was get the rain, get it out, you know, get it away from the building as fast as possible into the drain. And now it's the opposite. It's like, oh, slow that whole thing down. Green roofs or green or blue roofs, rain gardens all of that is a way of slowing all this down and depaving areas again, trying to infiltrate the water at a slower rate. All of this is a way of slowing the water at a slower rate. All of this is a way of slowing the water into the drains which are at capacity. So, yeah, I think it's just hopefully we've moved, we've changed our thinking towards?
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, and it certainly. It does seem like, you know, the types of rain that we're having for the last number of years does seem to be very intense. And while we get, you know, the types of rain that we're having for the last number of years does seem to be very intense. And while we get, you know, while we get a lot of rain in Ireland, generally it's the amount we get in short periods of time that seems to be causing a lot of issues over the last number of years and that definitely seems to be intensifying. You know, year to year and it mightn't be always in the same place, but we are definitely seeing seeing that being an issue. How kind of would you see that sort of translating to your day-to-day job? You know, in you know more on the on the domestic side, as you said, you're designing with your husband and he's an architect and you're working hand in hand. So how does that translate it's? Is it a similar scene that you're coming across?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I'm quite passionate about the fact that. You know, I see people paving over their front gardens. Where is the water going to go during these events and the way I see we individuals can all do this. Designers as well can design permeable services for the rain to go through. So, for instance, I redesigned my front garden recently and it's gravel, basic gravel and planting beds. I used to have a lot of flooding with the lawn before that and I don't have flooding anymore.
Speaker 3:So basically, the gravel and the hardcore acts as the water attenuation area to stop the water going out onto the street so that's what I would be highly aware of as well and rain gardens. A couple of my beds are like 200 millimetres down from the ground surface, so the water just drains into there and that's another holding area for the water.
Speaker 1:And so what does that look like in the ground? So that's an area you dig out and you put some sort of a plastic cage in it, is it? Or what does that look like?
Speaker 3:No, no, it's just not filling it up to the soil, to the top.
Speaker 3:You can put gravel in underneath, at the base of it, if you have an issue, to drain it away, but what we really want to do is get the water back into the aquifers. I have a problem with. I live in Bray and there's always a problem when we have an intense rain event, that the beach gets closed down because the stormwater drains or drainage system has become overwhelmed and it's all spilling out into the sea. And I think it happens around dublin bay as well. Whenever there's a huge rain event, they have to close the beaches to people swimming and I guess basically, okay, you can't swim, but what about the poor marine life? You know?
Speaker 3:yeah they are getting this pollution coming into their habitat. So it's about protecting the rivers and the seas as well. I think you know. So it's actually a bigger picture. Do you know what I mean? It's not just okay. So on my garden, my little patch, I can do something, and if everybody does something, then that can slow the water down and stop the drains from being overwhelmed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, something then that can slow the water down and stop the drains from being overwhelmed. Yeah, I think that's kind of that has been a message over the last couple of years on the podcast is that you know, individually we all feel like there's not much we can do about somebody's sort of bigger picture things that are happening, whether that's the collapse in, you know, in habitats or biodiversity and I suppose the message has been with various guests over the last couple of years is that we all have a small part to play and all those small parts added together start to become a powerful force.
Speaker 3:And, of course, you have to say what plants can actually deal with the drought conditions and the flooding conditions. So there are plants out there that can cope with that, and that's part of our seminar as well.
Speaker 2:Okay, Interesting story to cut across here About. That is the fact that we have huge flood events, but we also have huge drought events, now obviously increasing wind events. Uh, you know, so those, those plants, have got to do all three jobs at the same time. You know, so it is um and actually henrik schoman, one of our speakers is uh has done a lot of research on this. Uh um resilience of specific trees, you know, to cope with these different climate events.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so everything that you guys are seeing day-to-day professionally is, you know, it's feeding into, I suppose, what the theme of this seminar is, and it's, yeah, as we said, it's resilient gardens and landscape. So that's the overriding theme of it. But there's some seriously good speakers here, some of which I'm not familiar with. So maybe, dear do, you might just take uh, you know the first speaker and just sort of broadly talk I know you, there'll be some surprises, hopefully for you on the day but broadly talk about what their you know their talk at the seminar is going to be about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to just mention Henrik there, and he is the Associate Professor at the Swedish University of Ag Science in Gothenburg and he's also the Scientific Curator in Gothenburg Botanical Gardens as well, and his focus is on how plants are, adapt, can adapt to specific environmental conditions, and a lot of it has to do with uh urban environments. Um, you know, and, and, and how, um, how specific subspecies of certain trees are more uh resilient than others, you know. So, um, he's done a lot of uh from what I. We obviously just get a little um yeah.
Speaker 2:So the title of his talk is developing a language in selecting trees for gardens and public spaces. So basically it's to look and see how we can be much more accurate with our uh tree choice, with our um and and and how adaptive that is, and I think our recent storm has brought this more to the fore in what trees didn't survive the storm and for what reasons did they not survive, so even with regards to wind resilience and how they adapt. So I think that's a really topical conversation to so even with regards to wind resilience and how they adapt.
Speaker 2:I think that's a really topical conversation to have, so I'm really looking forward to his presentation.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. Funny enough, where I'm based here in the Midlands County Leash, the storm was nowhere near as bad as it was in loads of other areas. But I had to travel up to roscommon and north roscommon, up into mayo earlier this week and I couldn't believe it actually, because obviously you see the news and you see the damage, particularly of people's polytunnels and all the rest of it, which are generally vulnerable structures anyway. But I was blown away by the amount of tree damage and kind of unusual tree damage that I saw up there.
Speaker 1:So there's the obvious one where you see the big forestry of the singular planting which it's flattened that's. You know, that's obvious, we've seen that on the TV. But what really struck me was huge mature trees that are just popped over, with like 30 and 40 foot round root zones just sticking up in the air. And, ok, some of the areas where I was driving it's obviously stony ground so maybe they're not getting down deep enough, but they have been there. Like I'm talking about trees that are 100 plus years old and the ones that I would consider to be the most resilient type trees that you can get, and yet still here they are lying, lying down with their roots up in the air and that struck me as something that was really, really odd, because we've all seen storms before. But but I was taken aback a little bit by, you know, some of these that were flattened up that neck of the woods.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think Kilmacarra lost a lot of trees. The botanical garden down in Wicklow yeah, seamus O'Brien runs and really, really good specimens you know were gone and lost with the storms, the two recent storms that we had, yeah, it's sad, but there is.
Speaker 1:you know, and I guess this talk will kind of hone in on that, there is learnings there, I suppose, going forward, because while that was, as they said, it was kind of a once-in-a-lifetime type storm, but there is loads of other ones that have been sort of bombarding us on a yearly basis for the last few years. So there has to be lessons there, I guess, somewhere.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So if you want to Kinte, introduce us to the next speaker on the day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, there's Charlotte. Actually, funny enough, charlotte and Wendy Allen have worked together on another project. Charlotte is the director of ARC, which is the Action for River Kennet Trust, and she's dedicated her career to water-related issues, and the Kennet Trust actually is involved in keeping the habitat of the river clean for birds and wildlife, and she's also led several water-winning initiatives aimed at protecting and enhancing river catchments, and so she's very passionate about that and she will advocate for nature-based solutions to this. So her title of her talk is Rethinking Rain, and she will talk about the impact of changing rainfall patterns and adapt landscapes to new climate challenges. That's what her talk is about.
Speaker 3:And wendy is an award-winning garden designer. She's, um, she won I think it was hampton court. She won a gold medal for front garden design on water attenuation. Uh, she is very passionate about suds, yeah, so she even wants to look at some of our suds when she comes to visit, you know, in the city centre, and she's read some. She's also worked with the UK Rivers Trust as well and creating implemented rainscapes for the benefit of the communities and for biodiversity. And her title is the Resilience of Small Things. Her presentation will talk about how small suds interventions, which is exactly what I was talking about.
Speaker 3:you know, front gardens and things like that can have an impact on our environment and creates resilience to the weather changing patterns that we're having.
Speaker 1:They sound like very interesting and well for Ireland generally. They're an interesting topic because, you know, rain and our association with rain, how we deal with rain, is becoming more and more important, and I could be wrong in this, but when it comes to rivers, I think we're a little bit lax on that. I don't think we understand how to slow water in rivers and smaller streams and how beneficial that can be. I think we're kind of, as I say, I could be wrong on that, but it feels like we don't know enough about it or there's not enough people talking about it here, maybe.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know there's some community thing Galway organisation because they have a lot of flooding. My son has recently moved in. He's living in the city centre and every time there's a rain event or a storm the sandbags come out to prevent the water getting into the building. So that's pretty serious, I think you know, and yeah, I guess we have to start dealing with it properly. But I like the way things are going. As Deirdre said before, nature-based solutions. I mean even in Buddhist Town. I noticed there a few months ago that they had put in curbs with gaps between them, so instead of the water going down to drains, they were going to what we call swales with gaps between them.
Speaker 3:So instead of the water going down to drains, they were going to what we call swales, and those swales are all planted up. So it's a very attractive way of enhancing the landscape as well, by planting but also holding water instead of it going into our drains.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're slowing everything going into the drains and I've seen it used a lot more here and I don't know what the term is on it. But you know directly around the house where here in ireland traditionally we we run footpaths up to it generally not always obviously, but generally we run footpaths up to it. But I see a lot, of, a lot of designs recently where the footpath doesn't run to the house and you have little small sort of gravel areas right close to the house and there seems to be more and more of that coming through. Now you're probably seeing more of this sort of practical, these practical things coming through, but it's something that I have noticed for sure well, what I would do.
Speaker 3:What you would do is you, when you, if you're building your paths, you actually slope them to 150 slopes, so they drain into the, into the garden beds and that takes a lot of water away as well, and I've actually got, you know, a drain coming from my roof going to a soak pit into the front garden, because that's another area there's a lot of, you know. We have to take care of the water coming down off our roofs and things like that as well, and you can do the the mini, you know, planters where the water goes into it and then, if it overflows, it goes off somewhere else yeah, but there's lots of suds interventions that we can do around our own homes as well yeah for sure.
Speaker 1:And so next next speaker, I suppose adam whitbourne, who's yeah, he's um based in ireland and you know a lot of people will be familiar with adam, but it looks like it's going to be a very interesting talk, so tell us a little bit about that one.
Speaker 2:So he that's. We're delighted to have him. Like you know, as you said, a lot of people are aware that he's the one of the garden managers at the garden manager at Blarney Castle and I suppose he's been looking after that space for a number of years now, and you, obviously his commitment to wildlife and biodiversity is obvious there, you know. So his talk is moving the goalposts of managing and planning for changing times. I think if you look at a lot of our heritage landscapes within the country, they have a huge contribution to make to to climate change and are obviously very affected by climate change. So he's going to talk about how he's going to manage, how managing a big space like this, um, and adapting to evolving challenges, um, particularly with climate change. Uh, you know, he's going to just offer some insights into how he's managing it and how best to move. So it'll be very interesting to hear what he has to say.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. So that's obviously an estate that, as you say, all of those estates a number of years ago would have had a certain aesthetic, but a lot of them now are changing. You know, are changing tack, tack, obviously probably less maintained grass areas, I'm sure now they have an eye on on, on planting and change, are changing their planting schemes and their, their planting styles off the back of that.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that sounds like a really interesting one as well and particularly, I suppose, in, like you say, the traditional estates like that, which may have had a lot of emphasis on, on annual planting displays that may not have offered much pollination value, leaving places, as you say, unwild or wilded, you know, or untamed or not, maybe being as pristine with your maintenance and how that benefits a lot of different habitats and the ecology in the area, I suppose it's the management issues as well, isn't it Like Phoenix Park would be a classic.
Speaker 3:I think it looks brilliant. Now they're letting the grass grow and they're cutting it in September, and I think it's more attractive yeah, just looking at a green lawn, yeah, yeah, no, it is good, I suppose it's a.
Speaker 2:It's a. It's a learning curve for what we, for the public it to, to realize what's beautiful. So sometimes brown and and um, and a little bit less, uh, manicured is beautiful? I do think it is, but it's to bring the public along to realise that this is not just. We can't just be concerned with aesthetics of gardens and planting anymore. It's the layers of how important it is from an environmental or pollination point of view. That's what we need to be emphasising, more than the aesthetics.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's a change of perception, obviously, and it probably does take a little bit of time and then a little bit of a reframe of what we previously thought like. Um, kind of a good example and anyone that listens to the podcast is probably sick of me saying this, but I have a native wildflower meadow at the front of the house which took out a good bit of lawn and main reason was didn't want to be cutting it the whole time and tried to reduce that workload a little bit, which, again, I suppose, does you know some of the bigger places would would have that issue as well. They don't have the resources or they don't maybe want to have the environmental issue of going out on on big lawn mowers and mowing huge spaces now. So they're converting. But the funny thing about the wildflower meadow is that a native a native meadow looks absolutely fantastic for a kind of a short enough window. So it looks fantastic from probably May through to, I guess, the end of June and everything before that is. You can see it's building up to something, but it's not quite the full meadow yet and everything after that is a fading colored meadow.
Speaker 1:So in terms of the aesthetic it looks fantastic for a short window, but for me, what has been probably the biggest, I suppose, uh, the thing that I've got the most joy from looking at it is the biodiversity in it. So, um, again, I've mentioned it a hundred times before I never had bull finches in the garden, but since that meadow went in, I've had bull bullfinches If you walk through the meadow, every sort of. I'm not an insect expert by any means, but every sort of insect imaginable will rise from the meadow. As a result of that, there's an unbelievable amount of birds in there eating the seed heads and, I guess, some of the insects. And that has been the real kind of win.
Speaker 1:For me is that there's a beauty that's not necessarily the standard beauty that you're expecting from a meadow. It's. It's a different type of beauty, so it meant a kind of a reframing of what I was thinking in relation to that. So, but it certainly has been again like to see a pair of bullfinches. For me was a huge thrill, um, and yeah, it's a reframing of of what I originally would have taught yeah, and that's brilliant.
Speaker 2:I mean what you just said there is absolutely fantastic. It's rethinking what's beautiful and and the beauty is all those different layers of the insects and the bullfinches and you know so. It's not the like equated to, like the. We don't need everything to look like disney. It doesn't all have brightly colored green. You know all the year that the beauty is in the decay sometimes and allowing those other layers you know of the, the ecology in it, to develop a little bit more. And I think that's that's and and, and I see it even in the city with our landscape schemes that we obviously have moved away from our annual planting and we're looking at more ecologically ecological planting mixes that allow for that. But sometimes they don't look the prettiest, they might just look a little bit disheveled and it's to to bring the public along um with that can sometimes be a little bit hard because they just see a mess or they see a lazy council that's not maintaining we're really we're.
Speaker 2:Sometimes we've had to put signs up saying we're leaving this because of x, y and z and this is the benefit. Uh, and so I mean it will change. It's just it's, it's, it's.
Speaker 3:It will change in the future, I'm sure yeah it's quite interesting at the um, the bridgeford street park, that you're involved in theater and that was a fantastic initiative and I remember going to the opening of a theater, invited so long, and the landscape architect who was involved in that, dermot, foley, that one of the first things he said is these plants are not weeds, and I thought that was fantastic. You know these plants are not weeds. You know they're valuable biodiverse resources, you know, for, as you say, birds, insects and creating habitats, you know, and the habitat has to be able to feed the insects, give them water and shelter. That's the three key things that a landscape should really do for wildlife and insects.
Speaker 1:And that project and I'm not familiar with that project that you're talking about, but so the public perception of that as, at a glance, somebody passing by in a car or on the, on the train or wherever it is, I'm not sure, but if somebody looks at that at a glance, they may see something that's untidy. Um, but how you know, aside from, aside from posters, how else do we go about explaining that this is previously, this was a green space that was mowed on a weekly basis, and now it's a, it's an ecosystem all to itself. How do we go about, you know, translating that information to somebody who's passing by and yeah, well, have you seen the signs?
Speaker 3:as you know, this is not, you know, this is not weeds, this is, this is the place for bees and I. I think those signs help. The councils are putting out onto the, you know, the side of the roads and things like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I also think into that. It's like, say, with Bridge for Street Parks. So I manage that park and I bring people around it a lot. The local people are really proud of the fact that they have something unique. It's like Marmite you might go in and look, this is just all weeds, I think, if you bring people around it, which I do a lot. So, john, if you're in Dublin, give me a shout and I'll bring you around. It's to show all the. You get a deeper appreciation when you're immersed in it and you can see all these spaces actually really filled with a variety of planting, and I we don't. I've gotten rid of the word maintenance and landscape in Dublin and it's managing rather than maintaining. So maintaining means you're keeping everything looking the same.
Speaker 2:And so, with, with managing, you're allowing the planting to evolve and develop, and as it does. In nature, some things thrive more than others, and so that's what we've been doing over the years is just orchestrating it, you know. And so there's a huge beauty of that. So it's always different every single year. That's a slightly different palette, and that's that's always different every single year. That uh has a slightly different palette, and that's that's the beauty of it, you know. So it is something that I think, if we did more and more of um, people will accept it a bit more and accept the beauty. For, like what you did at your own um field, where you decided not to mow anymore and then you realized when you looked at it and you're at that space that you go this, there's more beauty in this, so I think it is exposure to it, maybe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think exposure is the big thing. I think that's what I was kind of getting at is that the science will tell you that this has been managed for biodiversity or whatever, but at a glance, as somebody is driving by, they'll see something and, as you said, it could be most of the time it's going to be that looks untidy, but that exposure to it and that understanding of it is key. And, yes, something like what you're saying you're doing in the park, where you take tours around or you'll speak to people about what's happening there. I think that's hugely important and that message then will assimilate out through the population, I guess through that way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I think what those landscapes do as well is give us a much stronger connection to nature. They're natural, you know, and you've got wildlife living in them and it's a really and I think it's far more relaxing and peaceful than a formal sort of layout. You know, it's interesting contrast. I was in a northern european garden this summer and there was mono planting, like one species and maybe a different color. You know, same species, a different color, and then it just looks so bland and you know that it's not biodiverse because only one type of insect may live there. You know you want a lot of different. You know integrated ecology type habitats to be going on there, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure We've gone slightly off topic here, but I guess it still all ties into the overriding theme of the seminar coming up. But there's one excellent speaker who a lot of listeners will know that we haven't spoke about yet, and that's Anne-Marie Powell. So if somebody wants to just tell us about what her talk is titled and maybe a sort of a summary of what that will entail, summary of what what that will entail.
Speaker 2:Well, I might jump in because it actually has. We've segued very carefully into her talk because obviously she's all about you know, not only the visual but creating habitats for wildlife in her gardens. You know so. Um, amory powell and obviously is lots of people know is a highly acclaimed uk garden designer and you know so. She's done a lot of RHS flower show gardens which have been award winning, so her gardens are talking about.
Speaker 2:Her talk is about bold biodiversity for tomorrow's gardens. So again she's looking at how adapting her aesthetic choices but also have much more ecological principles based behind it in creating the gardens for the future to adapt to climate change. So I think hers will be really interesting, just with regards to transforming gardens into, like, sanctuaries for biodiversity or extending pollinator seasons. You know all that sort of stuff. That's again I know we talked about Bridgeless Street Park, but it kind of moves into what Anne-Marie is going to be talking about and again it's all talking about the resilience, whether it's to water, drought, wind, and resilience for biodiversity and ecological spaces within our garden. So I think she'll be really, really interesting. It'll be an interesting talk, I think.
Speaker 3:Yeah it'll be a very interesting day. Actually, I have to say I've been going to the seminars for years and it's a very welcoming, warm environment. Everyone's there, everyone connects chats. Really, I couldn't believe it the first time, welcoming warm environment, you know, everyone's there, everyone connects chats. Really, I couldn't believe it the first time I went to it. I think the first one was 1996 and I kept going back each year for more. So you know, it really is a good day out and it's lovely to catch up with people that you don't normally see from year to year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I like, over the last few years, the teams and I like the. I don't know all of the speakers again this year, but I like the way that the overall team is driving the individual talks and how they're very, very relevant to what has been happening over the last few years and what will be happening into the future.
Speaker 3:So I think it's definitely something that should be interesting for a lot of people and, as you said earlier, john, you know, it gives the individual power to do their little bit on their plot, you know yeah, yeah, for sure like no, sorry, before we forget that we actually couldn't ever run a seminar um without our sponsors.
Speaker 2:You know so just I wanted to mention that we, board bia, have been a huge um support because they obviously realize the importance of bringing education and looking up research uh, or bringing research from all over the world to ireland, you know so just want to make a shout out to board bia. But also then we've got two product uh sponsors, um enriched, um environmental, which are you hugely important from a soil point of view, and that's something we didn't touch upon, you know so all of this and creating habitats or ecological spaces, and also then the developing of sods or rain gardens. It's the soil that actually does all that work developing of suds or rain gardens.
Speaker 2:It's the soil that actually does all that work. Yeah, so really, and the health of your soil has a huge impact on on how resilient your land is, or um so, uh, so that would be really good. And then we've got a millboard and um, so they've just recently come, so that will be really interesting to hear what they have to say as well.
Speaker 1:So yeah, millboard are a decking company that does composite, decking if, if I'm correct.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, excellent, yeah, yeah, sorry, I just wanted to get that in, just in case we, yeah, yeah no, that's all these events.
Speaker 1:You know they need sponsors and so on. So yeah, for sure. So in terms of tickets, obviously I've got to put links in show notes but tell people where they can direct people to, where they can find it, where they can find out more about the GLDA, where they can buy tickets for the seminar, and so on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's the GLDAie. Yeah, If they go on to click and then click on the link for the tickets. So there's varying ticket prices there. The students are cheaper than the others, so if students want to come along. They're very welcome as well, and friends and all different rates for people. So you don't have to be a member to come, you just have to have an interest in gardens and landscapes and resilience.
Speaker 1:And since you guys have done the posts on social media in relation to this a couple of months back, I see a lot of people sharing it and a lot of people talking about it and a lot of people saying they're looking forward to certain speakers. So, yeah, um, I think, I think for sure it's going to be. It's going to be a great day. So it's, um, the 22nd of february, which is a saturday, and it's the crown plaza, uh near the airport century yeah yeah, so that that sounds to be a great day.
Speaker 1:Deirdre and Kinta, it's been a really interesting chat. As I said we probably would. We went in a lot of different directions, but I think we stayed true to the overriding team of the conversation and of the upcoming seminar. So thank you very, very much for coming on. Master, my Garden podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you, john, nice to meet you. Thanks for having us. Thanks, john, nice to meet you. Thanks for having us. Thanks, john Bye.
Speaker 1:That's been this week's episode. A huge thanks to Deirdre and Kenta for coming on. Yeah, really interesting, really interesting chat and, as I said, lots of different directions covered. Certainly, seeing what I saw this week, we definitely do need to build up resilience in the landscape and in our gardens to weather events, be that storm, be that drought or be that wind. You know and and uh, you know, to have speakers coming from all over the world who are honing in on this and sort of guiding people on it and, I suppose, bringing their findings on the matter over over the last number of years to an irish audience, I think that's, that's something that'll be good. The link for the tickets will be in the show notes. And that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening and until the next time, happy gardening, thank you.