Celebrity gardener Diarmuid Gavin has revealed that he made a major change to his lauded Coronation Garden in Newtownabbey - without the royal family’s permission.
The magnificent Co Antrim structure, boasting bubbles, spinning trees, music and a Strictly-style glitter ball – which was put together in under three months – bears expensive metal centrepieces which read ‘King Charles and Queen Camilla’.
It was opened by their Majesties at the start of their two-day visit to Northern Ireland last month.
Read more: King Charles and Queen Camilla open NI Coronation Garden
But the original ornate signage plan for the Hazelbank pavilion in Newtownabbey only mentioned the new monarch and the date of his coronation, May 6.
Diarmuid, however, made a unilateral last-minute decision to change the wording on the metal crown and the entrance gates –based purely on his instinct.
In an interview ahead of Garden Show Ireland this weekend, London-born Diarmuid told how he wrote to King Charles before beginning the ambitious project.
“I requested his go-ahead for the lettering to be used,” said the 59-year-old designer, who’s been living in Newtownabbey during the Coronation Garden build and getting to know local people.
“We were putting this up in metal and on a set of gates, so we needed to know.”
But there was no reply from Buckingham Palace by the end of April, so Diarmuid took matters into his own hands and changed the sign.
“It was only the following day that a reply came from Balmoral confirming it – luckily for me,” recalled a gardener relieved at not being sent to the Tower.
“We only finished the project at 1.30am the night before the royal couple arrived…”
The Garden Show Ireland Ambassador created the garden – which has a huge ironwork structure topped with a crown and a glitter ball – to appeal to the King’s ‘whimsical’ sense of humour.
The beds, packed with bee and butterfly friendly flowers, even containing ‘dancing’ topiaries and spinning conical trees that move every 15 minutes to the tune of either 'Pure Imagination' from the Charlie and The Chocolate Factory film or Morecambe and Wise’s 'Bring Me Sunshine'.
It marks the beginning of a new green initiative for the Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council area, which is bookended by Belfast Lough and Lough Neagh.
It is the second garden in the borough to be designed by Gavin following the opening of the Clockwork Garden at Antrim Castle Gardens last summer to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee.
Diarmuid’s plan to “build and plant the newest Botanic gardens on the planet” – only mooted in December - began with the delivery of the Coronation Garden at breakneck speed.
“The first sod was cut on March 9. Most of this was built by hand and up in three months. That’s unheard of in this industry,” he said.
“This was on a different scale to the Clockwork Garden we built at Antrim Castle Gardens to mark the Queen’s Jubilee. This was all about the remarkable people who came together – including the council.”
The royal couple officially opened the new garden during their first post-Coronation visit to Northern Ireland on May 24.
“It might very well have been the reason they came; so that’s mad,” said Diarmuid, who said Garden Show Ireland 2023 “will be different than any other.
“This year it’s very much about ‘how to’; we’ll show visitors how to garden,’ he said.
“One of the standout attractions is a 'Have A Go At Gardening’ marquee that will be a bit like The Repair Shop (a TV programme where broken or damaged heirlooms are brought back to life), but it lets you have a go.
“We have five different experts in there to talk about plants and planting, vegetable growing, pots and containers for small spaces, houseplants and flower farming.
“People can repot something, learn how to prune, feed something, you can learn how to make a hanging basket. Get your hands dirty, get in there and do it.
“We’re building a very funky houseplant shipping container studio centre and we’ll have unusual containers like baths, and we’ll be planting them up,” he added.
New innovations include Potty about Pots, with distinguished plantsman Paul Smyth, Houseplant Heaven and Grow Your Own Food.
There’s also a hat competition – Mad Hatters Day on June 16 – with visitors encouraged to make their own hats and headpieces, Really Rubbish Scarecrows made by schoolchildren to visit in Scarecrow Wood and Pooch Patch, designed for pet lovers and their four-legged friends.
Diarmuid said the key attraction to this year’s garden show will be its focus on teaching people who increasingly want to learn how to garden.
“We have people who’ll tell their own stories including a man who started gardening for the first time during Covid and built a farm on a roof in the city centre,” he said.
“We have Marie Staunton, a supermodel who turned to gardening, who’s coming to talk about fashion and gardening. We have flower farmers and a young Ethiopian farmer Biruk Hailu with his Concrete Garden – so new young voices.”
Garden Show Ireland’s world of pure imagination, at Antrim Castle Gardens, will no doubt inspire the 30,000 visitors it is likely to attract over three days from Friday June 16.
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