GLDA seminar 2026

Tickets for the 2026 GLDA seminar are now available

This year’s speakers reflect a broad spectrum of ways in which designers, horticulturists and thinkers engage with the living world

Horticulture

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29 January 2026

This year’s GLDA seminar – “The Interconnection of All Things” will take place on the 28th February between 9am-5.30pm at Crowne Plaza Dublin Airport Hotel Conference Centre in Santry.

The 2026 seminar will explore how we are indelibly linked and influenced by our environment and the immense potential plants have to help us affect positive outcomes as we move forward.

It will examine how plants shape our landscapes culturally and aesthetically and how, in turn, our landscapes shape us.

Past GLDA seminars have explored in depth how creating resilient spaces that invite nature in can help us meet the many challenges we face and how we can employ natural processes to help clean up pollution and mitigate the effects of climate change and biodiversity loss.

At the heart of this year’s theme is the understanding that plants are not mere ornaments, but active partners in the web of life, telling the story of soil, climate, culture, and community, through thoughtful designed plant communities, naturalistic planting and ecological design.

By better understanding that our wellness is intrinsically linked to the wellness of the planet we can employ simple fixes in the face of serious challenges and ensure the mark we leave is a positive one.

The seminar will also look at how gardens and our attitudes to them are changing. Gardens by their nature are never static. They are dynamic and evolving entities, changing as plants grow and interact with their environment and each other and reflecting the preoccupations of the day. Managing change and facilitating appropriate development is part and parcel of good garden stewardship.

Attendees will hear how historic gardens can be well disposed to be taken in a new direction reflecting the energy and vision of current owners. Even older gardens that are culturally significant, when fully assessed, benefit most when deference to their past is balanced with allowing them to evolve.

The speakers will demonstrate how we can improve outcomes for our landscapes and gardens by using enlightened and dynamic design, innovations in technology and adopting informed and ecologically mindful practices that reinforce this fundamental link.

The seminar will illustrate how, thanks to the observation and study of naturally resilient plant communities, and the tireless experimentation of designers and plantspeople, we have a wealth of knowledge to build on.

The speakers will share how we can apply an evolving understanding of plants and how they interact with each other and their locality to make enriching and restorative spaces that are hugely beneficial to ourselves, to nature and to the wider environment.

We are stewards of the living world, it depends on us to make good choices. Through ecologically conscious design, conservation, habitat protection and finding a balance between the pressures of modern life and supporting the natural environment we can ensure a better future for ourselves and nature.

The speakers at the seminar will underscore how dependent we are on healthy landscapes and how engaging with the natural world comforts, recharges and invigorates and can foster well-being at the individual and community level.

Speakers at the GLDA 2026 seminar

This year’s speakers reflect a broad spectrum of ways in which designers, horticulturists and thinkers engage with the living world – from ecological technology and historic plant collections to landscape design, restoration and the philosophy of our relationship with nature.

Neil Porteous

He is a historic gardens consultant, gardener and plantsman whose work sits at the intersection of plants, practice and garden history. Trained in garden history and grounded in hands-on horticulture, he approaches historic landscapes as working gardens, where plant knowledge, place and time are inseparable.

Neil currently works closely with head gardeners and garden teams at sites including Mount Stewart, Blarney Castle, Castlewellan, Clandeboye and Glenarm Castle, providing practical horticultural advice rooted in the realities of each place.

In his talk, “Plants for Irish Gardens for the 21st Century – Mount Stewart, Co. Down”, Neil uses Mount Stewart as a working example to explore plant choice in a changeable climate, and the decisions that shape long-term garden resilience. The talk includes a short tribute to plantsman Seamus O’Brien, who passed away late last year.

2. Galen Fulford

Based in the UK, environmental entrepreneur and inventor he is the founding director of Biomatrix Water, a company pioneering modular floating ecosystems that restore water quality and biodiversity in urban waterways.

In his talk, “Designing and Building Floating Gardens and Parks”, he will explore international case studies and share concepts developed for Dublin’s Grand Canal Basin.

3. Margie Ruddick

US-based landscape designer and author Margie Ruddick is known for her pioneering approach that bridges ecology and high design.

In her talk, “Restoring Connections”, Margie rethinks restoration “not as restoring what once existed, but restoring connections – between landscapes, ecosystems and communities.” She will share how this idea has shaped her work, from a desert landscape in Mexico and a 3,000-acre preserve in India’s Western Ghats to her own backyard in the Eastern US.

4. Lulu Urquhart and Adam Hunt

With over twenty years of practice, Urquhart and Hunt work from studios in Somerset, UK, and Cork, Ireland, creating landscapes that place ecological restoration at the heart of design.

Their projects – from the public Giardini Pistola in Italy to the Rewilding Britain Landscape at the 2022 Chelsea Flower Show – explore the evolving relationship between people, nature, and place. They also collaborate with Piet Oudolf on private and public projects, including the Hauser and Wirth Art Gallery in Somerset.

In “Designing with Nature”, Lulu and Adam present their vision of the garden as a living dialogue between the natural and the cultivated world.

Find out more under the link: https://glda.ie/

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Read More: GLDA Seminar speakers