For the recent Bloom garden showcase, Cork landscape designer Sean Russell styled the National Dairy Council Sustainable Dairy Farm Garden to resemble a traditional, old-style Irish country farm.
Complete with milk churns, dry stone walls, a mature grass clover pasture, and an old open structured farm outhouse, the display included bespoke metal furniture and a specially commissioned metal wire woven cow.
The garden showcase was designed to emphasise the importance of grass-fed dairy animals in Ireland and the quality of milk produced. The basic methods of milk production remain largely unchanged today.
Russell said: “We used only native planting i.e. Alder, Common Birch, and wildflowers such as Red Field Campion and Cow Parsley as you find on a real Irish dairy farm.”
Irish dairy farmers play a central role in protecting and improving Ireland’s precious rural biodiversity by planting native hedgerows and trees, offering pollinator patches for bees and wasps, and protecting watercourses via the ASSAP (Agricultural Sustainability Support and Advisory Programme scheme). Russell also included white clover as it naturally attracts and retains nitrogen from the atmosphere, making it available for plant growth. Native trees and hedgerows also provide natural cover for wild birds.
Cathy Curran, Communications Manager at the National Dairy Council said: “We were really excited to share the dairy farm story with a largely urban audience at Bloom as there is still a disconnect between parlour and plate. Farmers play a key role in maintaining and developing habitats for wildlife, whilst reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
Ireland is proud of its natural, grass-based farming systems. Grassland accounts for 90% of the agricultural land area (DAFM, 2019), which forms a solid basis for supporting wildlife.