29-04-2025
72-year-old designer creates deam garden for growing family
The 16th series of beloved gardening competition Super Garden has returned to our screens on RTÉ One, with this week's episode introducing viewers to 72-year-old designer Eileen Sung.
A latecomer to garden design, Eileen Sung took to studying horticulture following retirement.
Her varied career saw her working with the police in Hong Kong for eight years before returning to Northern Ireland to work in the civil service.
Originally from Derry, the Belfast-based woman has been working in the gardening sphere for over 12 years and recently graduated in horticulture with a degree from the University of Ulster.
"My ambition for the next five years [is] I want to help people build their gardens and to renew their gardens," she said. "I also want to go on learning and I want to enjoy my horitculture training."
Eileen currently volunteers as a gardener and garden guide at Rowallane National Trust, and previously worked for Belfast City Council as a garden labourer.
Now, aged 72, her dream is to feature at Bloom as a garden designer.
If she wins Super Garden, she will be given the chance to showcase her winning design at Ireland's largest gardening festival, where over a hundred thousand visitors will have the chance to see their winning design brought to life, joining the ranks of Ireland's top garden designers.
Her opportunity to win the prize comes through her work with a young family in Baker Hall in Navan, Co Meath.
Vasile, Sarah, and three-year-old Francesco are a growing family, with another baby on the way, and are hoping to create a space that will be suitable for their little ones.
As well as having room to play, the family hope that Eileen can create a space to styslishly store away a series of bicycles and Vasile's motorbike.
With this in mind, Eileen used her three weeks and €15,000 budget to create a 'new beginnings' garden. Initially, the plans included a water feature, children's monkeybars, and no space for the bikes but things soon changed when time became crunched.
In the end, Super Garden judges Monica Alvarez and Carol Marks told Eileen that she created a functional family garden with great use of space and incredible planting, while Brian Burke felt that Eileen remained a little "unsure of herself".
