Ballycastle gardener Ryan enjoys bumper harvest of gold!

The UTV Show Garden Challenge tasked existing and budding garden designers to present a small garden which was fun, useful and easy to maintain.

Hailing from all over Ireland the four finalists were Ryan Magee from Ballycastle, Micheal O’Reilly from Belfast, James Sheridan from Carnmoney and Chris Kinghan form Monaghan. Each presented different interpretations of the theme and the winning garden became the centre piece for filming for UTV’s The Magazine which was broadcast on Friday 9th May.

The finished gardens were judged by a prestigious panel comprising of Ireland’s world renowned plantswoman Helen Dillon, gardening guru Geoff Stebbings and Reg Maxwell - former Head of Botanic Gardens and winner of Best in Show at the first Garden Show Ireland event 10 years ago. Head of the judging panel Geoff Stebbings commented, “The standard this year was extremely high and incredibly competitive. Designers used the theme to the best advantage and the different interpretations were most interesting. ”

Ryan said of the experience: “It is our first time to enter anything like this and so we are over the moon to be awarded the prestigious Gold on our first attempt.

“We really enjoyed the experience for the most part. As the garden was built in one week, the wet weather conditions posed a number of logistical problems.

“We would strongly consider doing the show again next year but we will wait to see the uptake on this year’s garden.

“Now that we have won Gold we may have a bit more standing to approach potential sponsors which would allow us to build bigger and batter show gardens.”

gardendesignandbuild.com are a member of ALCI (Association of Landscape Contractors of Ireland).

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