Ponte de Lima Festival has 11 “Sleep” gardens until 31 October

The Ponte de Lima festival, featuring 11 interpretations of “Sleep” from different parts of the world, will “evolve” until 31 October. Next year’s theme has already been selected.

Ponte de Lima International Garden Festival: gardens that change over time

The garden “Dreamlike Space [garden-pavilion]”, designed by a Colombian architect for the 2026 edition of the Ponte de Lima International Garden Festival, has included an extra feature from its very first days. Neither its creator nor the team of gardeners who built it had planned for it: a bird has made its nest in one of its shrubs. The unexpected presence came as a surprise, but it also foreshadows the changes these creations - renewed every year - undergo during the five months in which visitors can see them.

The plants used, including rare species such as the air-dwelling tillandsias hanging in another of this year’s gardens, “Dreamlike Tillandsias”, by four Portuguese and Brazilian authors, grow and alter the spaces. They are also gradually inhabited by birds, frogs, butterflies, dragonflies and other species.

“Gardens have this interesting aspect: visitors can come now, at the opening, then return in a month or two to see how they have developed. I think that is also what makes the festival so appealing, because we can follow their development over a long period,” says Sandra Pereira, Head of the Environment and Green Spaces Division at Ponte de Lima Council. She notes that, when the event ends on 31 October, the temporary gardens on display since the 29th “will be different”.

“Sleep” theme brings together 11 selected garden designs

The 21st edition, themed “Sleep”, includes 11 entries chosen through an international competition. Alongside these main projects are 11 gardens created by pupils from Ponte de Lima school clusters, as well as the two most voted-for gardens from the 2025 edition. Around 25 gardeners built them, and in 2027 they will again get to work on new proposals based on the theme “Smart Gardens”.

“Every year we have to reinvent ourselves. This project has the advantage of keeping us constantly active. For the gardeners themselves, having to study the designs, interpret them and build them, I think it gives them pleasure and keeps them motivated every year,” says Sandra Pereira. Between November and the end of May, she recalls, the festival grounds are closed to the public and turned into “a building site” in preparation for the following edition.

Gardeners prepare for the next Ponte de Lima festival

“I really enjoy this work. They are temporary gardens, and that makes it even more enjoyable and challenging. Every year is different, and there is huge anticipation about managing to meet the deadline we are given to have them ready. It is wonderful,” says Fátima Pereira, who has worked as a gardener for seven years at the festival site beside the River Lima.

“It is part of our lives, our everyday routine. We forget we have a home as we devote ourselves completely to the project,” she says. Here, she adds, “we are much more than gardeners: we are carpenters, bricklayers, we do a bit of everything”. She admits that “it is hard to dismantle some of them at the end because they are so beautiful, but we already know that another, even more beautiful work will come next”.