Super Garden 2019 & 2020

Vicarious Function

Starts next Thursday, RTE 1, 8.30 p.m.

"Super Garden returns with five new budding designers battling it out, to secure a coveted show garden spot at Bloom 2019".

For a start, "Designer Dermot Davis from Co. Wicklow, hopes to wow the judges by showcasing his eclectic style and quirky ideas" [RTE info]

Inviting all you gardening enthusiasts to come over here to Reality TV to share your ideas and gardening knowledge!

Vicarious Function

Bloom, which is organised by Bord Bia, celebrates its 13th anniversary in 2019.

13 years! Have never missed one since the start. LOL! The excitement is mounting.

Seeing the winner of Super Garden there is something special that adds to the fun of a visit.

More info re Bloom here:

https://bloominthepark.com/

Posy

Looking forward to this.
Went to Bloom last year and seen the winning garden there. Might not bother going back this year, it was pretty expensive and so very crowded! Still going to watch Supergarden though!

Vicarious Function

It's a good idea to keep our eyes peeled for offers of free tickets. Sometimes there can be promotions by sponsoring companies for free tickets or raffles for same via email notifictions. I've been lucky a few times in the past, but haven't come across any recently.

Vicarious Function

Judges being interviewed on Today Show with Maura and Daithi. Sorry, that was Tuesday. I had it on Record.

Vicarious Function

There's a new Judge of Super Garden this year - Brian Burke, who's SG entry won a few years ago.

https://www.rte.ie/tv/programmes/super-garden/2018/0417/955108-super-garden-judges/

He seems to be very well qualified for the job.

The other two judges remain the same - Gary Graham and Monica Alvarez.

This week's garden has an awful lot going on.....more like a room outside than a garden. That seems to be the trend for the last couple of years. Too much hard surface and gimmicky stuff for my liking.

Vicarious Function

Well done to Dermot! He pulled off his many ideas wirth "blood sweat and tears" as he said he would. I agree with inthehat that there's an awful lot going on there.

I love a lot of what he has there. The colorful tiling on the fireplace wall, the stunning planting, especially the massive pine tree and the copious lighting, to mention a selectiion of these. The huge arched light is awesome. Where on Earth did he get that?

Lovely to see all the help that was available and how pleased and involved the owners were. The little girl in pink adding a lovely touch.

Good luck to Dermot! A great start to the Super Garden 2019 series!

the_pen_turner

Just sitting down to watch it now. Interesting design. Only a few min in

I'm very suprised that the designer designs a random garden and then the show finds a space to build it.
Surely you should start with the space and the people using it and design around their needs

Vicarious Function

the_pen_turner wrote: »

Just sitting down to watch it now. Interesting design. Only a few min in

I'm very suprised that the designer designs a random garden and then the show finds a space to build it.
Surely you should start with the space and the people using it and design around their needs

Yes, I was a bit puzzled by that too. It seems to be a different approach from other years.

Vicarious Function

The final of Super Garden is on RTE 1 at 7.00 p.m. tonight. Then Bloom 2019 is on same channel at 8.30 p.m.

Vicarious Function

I'm ecstatic about this year's winner. I won't spoil it in case there is someone who hasn't watched the programme yet.

Hoping to be at Bloom tomorrow.

Vicarious Function

Is nobody here interested in Super Garden - or Bloom? I went to Bloom yesterday. As usual it was crowded. Weather perfect. There is a record number of gold medals this year. Saw my fave super garden - "The Underdog". A little disappointed because it seemed crammed into a smaller space than the one on TV. It would have been nice to have seen a dog running around there, but maybe that would have been in breach of the rules.

Muahahaha

This years version just started on RTE with a slightly different format in that all the gardens are in the one estate in Dublin

Living Off The Splash

Garden 1. Over the top. Much too busy.

djemba djemba

First time watching this show. Are the owners really surprised. Surely they just look out the back window every morning during the process.

I enjoyed that. My god, those gardens are seriously water logged. Loved the stonework around the water feature b

bodyguard1

A brand new house in a New Development of Social Housing and a €10,000 garden makeover..........some people have all the luck ! Both myself and my wife work full time to cover our mortgage, we built a house 20 years ago and can't afford to paint the house never mind do up the garden. Maybe we should have got divorced years ago and put our names on the housing list for Social Housing.

the_pen_turner

Living Off The Splash wrote: »

Garden 1. Over the top. Much too busy.

I liked it.
there are a few too many materials in there but it is a lovely garden. it is right up there with the winners from previous years.

jonevin

bodyguard1 wrote: »

A brand new house in a New Development of Social Housing and a €10,000 garden makeover..........some people have all the luck ! Both myself and my wife work full time to cover our mortgage, we built a house 20 years ago and can't afford to paint the house never mind do up the garden. Maybe we should have got divorced years ago and put our names on the housing list for Social Housing.

Very lucky indeed . Best of luck to them I hope they enjoy it for many years to
Come.

Living Off The Splash

the_pen_turner wrote: »

I liked it.
there are a few too many materials in there but it is a lovely garden. it is right up there with the winners from previous years.

Lots of sharp edges where a two children could hurt themselves. We saw the two kids at the end of the show running wild through the garden.... not child friendly at all.

Pkiernan

bodyguard1 wrote: »

A brand new house in a New Development of Social Housing and a €10,000 garden makeover..........some people have all the luck ! Both myself and my wife work full time to cover our mortgage, we built a house 20 years ago and can't afford to paint the house never mind do up the garden. Maybe we should have got divorced years ago and put our names on the housing list for Social Housing.

Irish society doesn't value hard work any more unfortunately .

the_pen_turner

Living Off The Splash wrote: »

Lots of sharp edges where a two children could hurt themselves. We saw the two kids at the end of the show running wild through the garden.... not child friendly at all.

they are not toddlers. yes hard edges but so is the house , school etc. you cant wrap them in cotton wool.


they spend most of their time on social media anyway judging by their mural

bodyguard1

bodyguard1 wrote: »

A brand new house in a New Development of Social Housing and a €10,000 garden makeover..........some people have all the luck ! Both myself and my wife work full time to cover our mortgage, we built a house 20 years ago and can't afford to paint the house never mind do up the garden. Maybe we should have got divorced years ago and put our names on the housing list for Social Housing.

That garden is worth a lot more than 10k. The planting alone cost 5k and one of the trees 1.5k. With the amount of labour (there was about 10 people working on it in one shot) and expensive materials (supplied by Woddies I assume) for the hard landscaping gone in, not to mind the week of groundworks to sort the drainage before they could do a thing, if you or I were to go to the market to get that work done, you would not get change out of 50-60k.

the_pen_turner

you have to remember that he is a landscaper . it looked like that was his own digger and dumper. he gets better deals in the hardware and suppliers. and has materials left over back at the yard. its small stuff that he isn't buying that adds up like sand and cement
the favours he is pulling in a professionals and contacts in the right places. a lot of people on similar shows get help from their families who are handy at best.

he wouldn't have had to pay anyone to do anything. he was well able to do it himself and had a very capable team with him. its very easy to ring up your fellow trades and get labour (and materials) on the promise of returning the favour later.


ultimately I think its a bit unfair on the armatures or fresh out of collage designers. they are at a disadvantage straight away compared to a pro who does this everyday and has all the equipment to do it

Muahahaha

Deleted User wrote: »

That garden is worth a lot more than 10k. The planting alone cost 5k and one of the trees 1.5k. With the amount of labour (there was about 10 people working on it in one shot) and expensive materials (supplied by Woddies I assume) for the hard landscaping gone in, not to mind the week of groundworks to sort the drainage before they could do a thing, if you or I were to go to the market to get that work done, you would not get change out of 50-60k.

Yeah that Scots Pine tree that cost 1.5k was some job, it was a beautiful piece of work. Would just wonder how big it might grow though.

the_pen_turner wrote: »

you have to remember that he is a landscaper . it looked like that was his own digger and dumper. he gets better deals in the hardware and suppliers. and has materials left over back at the yard. its small stuff that he isn't buying that adds up like sand and cement
the favours he is pulling in a professionals and contacts in the right places. a lot of people on similar shows get help from their families who are handy at best.

he wouldn't have had to pay anyone to do anything. he was well able to do it himself and had a very capable team with him. its very easy to ring up your fellow trades and get labour (and materials) on the promise of returning the favour later.


ultimately I think its a bit unfair on the armatures or fresh out of collage designers. they are at a disadvantage straight away compared to a pro who does this everyday and has all the equipment to do it

Its actually a great deal for the home owner. Not only do they get a free garden with Woodies footing the bill for plants and landscaping but the person in the competition always brings an entire labour force for free too because they want to win the competition and get featured in Bloom.

The lad in the last episode said he has done over 100 gardens, he also worked with Diarmuid Gavin at the Chelsea Flower show creating a garden there. He clearly had a lot of contacts and favours to call in which is a big advantage over the other contestants. Though I do remember previous series where all the contestants were fresh out of horticultural college or else someone changing their career to garden design.

I think its great that they have upped the program length to one hour over the previous 30 minutes which always felt a bit rushed.

bodyguard1

bodyguard1 wrote: »

A brand new house in a New Development of Social Housing and a €10,000 garden makeover

Was watching this the other night as well and myself and friend were borderline angry watching it.

Muahahaha

Dont think this garden will be beating last weeks effort

djemba djemba

This could be a disaster

Muahahaha

yeah I think this one is away with the fairies

BettePorter

this is a weird episode. it seems its more about her than anything shes actually doing. one minute shes taking selfies with work mates....the next shes having a birthday party.

Every other scene shes in, she has her phone in her hand

Muahahaha

I dont think I've seen her do any proper work yet, lots of pieces to camera with others doing the work in the background

Living Off The Splash

Tara is utterly useless and helpless. Standing around waiting for others to do her work for her.

Posy

Glad I'm not the only one who thought she seemed to be wandering around while everyone else did all the work!

Disappointed that she didn't use the pleached trees, instead a bald birch which hid nothing.
I was interested to see the effect, because I'm looking for a 'privacy' tree. :pac:

Last week's contestant still in the lead for me!

Max Headroom

Ah..like don't be like so hard like on poor like Tara like....she,s like under like a lot of like pressure. .like.....Jesus i hate the way like people like speak these days..like....

Crap episode...I wish they,d give an hour to Home Rescue...love that programme but way too short...

Muahahaha

I didnt think a whole lot of her garden either. I mean it looked nice and everything but it seemed to me she was making a garden the way she would like one herself.

All those edible plants, unless you're some sort of Michelin starred chef who would ever use 20 different types of salad leaves or all the herbs. A few herbs and salad plants is grand if thats your main diet but not of any practicable use to a family with kids who typically hate greens. Those plants will get out of control in no time and then you've the hassle of constantly chopping them back and keeping them tidy, its a lot of work for little reward IMO.

Muahahaha

Posy wrote: »

Last week's contestant still in the lead for me!

yeah I think Dermot from last week is the man to beat, he really delivered a great garden and his finishes looked top class. He ran the project like clockwork too, even with the first week lost to fixing the drainage problems he still got it done on time. Whereas Tara tonight barely did any work for the first week because she was off working in AIB. Bit daft that entering a competition and thinking you could win it without putting in the same amount of work as the other contestants.

Im interested to see how your man Fran gets on, he looks like an old school gardener but part of me wonders will he be down in the potting shed smoking some wacky backy

jonevin

Muahahaha wrote: »

yeah I think Dermot from last week is the man to beat, he really delivered a great garden and his finishes looked top class. He ran the project like clockwork too, even with the first week lost to fixing the drainage problems he still got it done on time. Whereas Tara tonight barely did any work for the first week because she was off working in AIB. Bit daft that entering a competition and thinking you could win it without putting in the same amount of work as the other contestants.

Im interested to see how your man Fran gets on, he looks like an old school gardener but part of me wonders will he be down in the potting shed smoking some wacky backy

Dermot doesn’t win

Max Headroom

Max Headroom wrote: »

Ah..like don't be like so hard like on poor like Tara like....she,s like under like a lot of like pressure. .like.....Jesus i hate the way like people like speak these days..like....

Crap episode...I wish they,d give an hour to Home Rescue...love that programme but way too short...

I think she saw it as an opportunity to make it all about her. She was painfully annoying in that way people are when they are trying too hard to be alternative. Crap episode that was more reality TV than gardening show.

RobAMerc

i think the idea that your result is based on how many friends you have who can help is unfair and stupid. Taras dad is in construction and her husband went to horticultural college with her - not everyone would have access to those resources - not a level playing field

Max Headroom

jonevin wrote: »

Dermot doesn’t win

I can understand that..he has'nt got the "look" they'd like...I'd quess Tara even though her garden was'nt even finished or the other girl....

Wonder how they pick the contestants....

pjmn

Best delegator I've ever seen - didn't do a tap of work herself, but did manage to get everyone else to do it for her!

nthclare

pjmn wrote: »

Best delegator I've ever seen - didn't do a tap of work herself, but did manage to get everyone else to do it for her!

Ugggg these new age gardener's make me sick, coming from generations of gardener's I can spot a charoltan easily enough.

They're just not gardener's full stop, absolute idiot's.
Planting schemes are horrendous.
No hands on experience, like a lot of the fluff gardener's these day's.

Planting pure rubbish, mostly generic hybrid's and unnatural plant's with flamboyant expectations..

The amount of us real gardener's who have to fix
a lot of gardenn designer's work is a joke.

They hate seeing me coming, because I just see the bull**** that's trying to sell to people.

Kid's graduating from the Bots and other horticultural college's want to be superstars nowadays.
Back in my day we just wanted a job afterwards and it was like a vocation...

Planting Hostas in direct sunlight, or the fillers just filling the gap's like...
Fck it's Saturday morning I don't need to be ranting again lol

the_pen_turner

I think she made her self look very bad in this episode. did very little work, very disorganised and the scene where she was caught on camera while putting in the wire or pipe into the shed


dermot from last week was the winner from this week.


her garden was grand but nothing special. I hope the family is into gardening in a big way. there is a lot of work to keep that right. that hydroponics set up will be a disaster.


I don't mind if dermot doesn't win because it will take a pretty special garden to beat him.

nthclare

nthclare wrote: »

Ugggg these new age gardener's make me sick, coming from generations of gardener's I can spot a charoltan easily enough.

They're just not gardener's full stop, absolute idiot's.
Planting schemes are horrendous.
No hands on experience, like a lot of the fluff gardener's these day's.

Planting pure rubbish, mostly generic hybrid's and unnatural plant's with flamboyant expectations..

The amount of us real gardener's who have to fix
a lot of gardenn designer's work is a joke.

They hate seeing me coming, because I just see the bull**** that's trying to sell to people.

Kid's graduating from the Bots and other horticultural college's want to be superstars nowadays.
Back in my day we just wanted a job afterwards and it was like a vocation...

Planting Hostas in direct sunlight, or the fillers just filling the gap's like...
Fck it's Saturday morning I don't need to be ranting again lol

Bit harsh, but that garden was patently not suited to the needs of the family, and I can only imagine it will be a mess without proper maintenance.

One of the first scenes was of the kids playing football in the old garden yet there was barely a lawn in the finally design. These new garden designers are like interior designers of the outside rather than gardeners, and their designs are overwrought and often vanity projects.

She definitely saw herself as more of an artist than a gardener. I think when she mentioned that her husband was a mushroom farmer from Cavan three times in the first few minutes I had her pegged as someone who was in love with the idea of an alternative lifestyle rather than being authentically different like your man Fran or Dermot, who come across as garden lovers while also being a bit cracked but in a genuine way.

nthclare

nthclare wrote: »

Fck it's Saturday morning I don't need to be ranting again lol

It’s still Friday. Woohoo!

Max Headroom

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

It’s still Friday. Woohoo!

Phew...thought I'd missed Corrie.....:D

Muahahaha

the_pen_turner wrote: »

I think she made her self look very bad in this episode. did very little work, very disorganised and the scene where she was caught on camera while putting in the wire or pipe into the shed

Yeah she was all over the place and it seemed to be all about her. She got slagged a fair bit on Twitter over it, nothing nasty, just people pointing out her lack of work and disappearing to work for AIB. Im not sure why Gary Graham allowed that to happen, its a competition to appear at Bloom so either you're all in or dont bother. Im sure there were other applicants just as worthy who could have showed up for the three weeks.

her garden was grand but nothing special. I hope the family is into gardening in a big way. there is a lot of work to keep that right. that hydroponics set up will be a disaster.
.

When I saw the hydroponics and aquaponics I was just :rolleyes: The vertical salad and herb walls look great when planted and thats the kind of state you see vertical gardens in pictures on Instagram or Pinterest. But give that vertical garden a couple of weeks water and sunshine and it'll be a mess of leaves. And then you're supposed to eat them all, I think its a couple of rabbits they'll be needing for that job.

In a way Ive sympathy with the family because there was nothing to indicate that they were these mad keen gardeners who would be out trimming and thinning leaves several hours a week. Its a lot of work to look after a garden like that and now they're stuck with it and the kids have nowhere to kick a football. I think Gary Graham should have had a closer eye on things to make sure the families end up with something that actually suits their lifestyle.

greenexile

Anyone watching this week? The designer is at least considering his client and brief this time, but a lot of angles going on.

the_pen_turner

tis grand. nothing amazing

did monica just say that she was wrong twice in one show

Fann Linn

greenexile wrote: »

Anyone watching this week? The designer is at least considering his client and brief this time, but a lot of angles going on.

And his workmanship in laying the paving etc was excellent IMO.