Niall is a landscape and horticulture graduate with twenty years of experience designing and building gardens. He is a multi award winning garden designer, including a Best in Category for Bloom 2009. Based in Dublin, Niall transforms gardens with a strong emphasis on creative flair and customer service. In 2015 he returns to Bloom after a five year absence with a garden for Pieta House to help promote their life saving work. A soulful contemplative space with contemporary styling, the garden is typical of Niall’s passion for creating evocative spaces. Outside of working on his gardens, Niall has a keen interest in mental well-being and personal growth. His own message with this garden for Pieta House is to say ‘it is ok not to be ok and it is absolutely ok to tell someone about it. That’s why I love the work Pieta House do and what better way to get that message across than with a beautiful garden at Bloom’(View profile)
DARKNESS INTO LIGHT – PIETA HOUSE GARDEN
This garden symbolises a journey, at the end of which you find a safe space to sit and reflect. A path beset with high walls guides you through shady darkness into the light of the sun. This is a warm inviting space to open up. A space that encourages growth in all its rich colour and texture
From behind the darkness of the walls, symbolic of the walls of the stigma that surrounds mental health, two water rills emerge. The water here ceaselessly bubbles and churns in its narrow channels until it finds calm in the broad reflective pool.
Two simple chairs, as would be found in any of the Pieta House therapy rooms, are seated at the end of this reflective pool.
To the rear of these two chairs is a wall on which visitors to the garden will be invited to write affirmations or messages of support to loved ones. Or simply just tag their name in support of the lifesaving work done by Pieta House
Name: Niall Maxwell
@: niamax@gmail.com
