the garden awakening

Mary Reynolds – Reformed Landscape Designer and Nature Activist-- explains how we can all become guardians of the earth, starting in our own back yards, shifting human consciousness into remembering that our role here is one of caretaker and creator. 

Mary is a garden designer, a philosopher – a writer. She is the youngest woman to win a Gold Medal for garden design at the Chelsea Flower Show since its inception over 100 years ago and is known as one of the world’s ten best landscape designers.

Mary grew up on a small mixed farm in Wexford, in the south of Ireland. 20 years ago she set up her own company designing gardens in Dublin. A few years later, having lost the will to live from constantly creating modern gardens, she realized that she could no longer continue shaping land in the same way and re-imagined her work to become nature rather than human-centered.

Mary brought her new, still relatively unformed ideas to be showcased at the Chelsea flower show in London where she achieved a gold medal, unusual at the time for a first-time effort. Since that time, she has built up quite a cult following in the world of garden design and is considered unique in her field.

Another transformation came a few years ago when Mary realized we had to rethink the whole relationship we had with the land and re-examine what it means to truly design in harmony with nature. Those latest revelations lead to The Garden Awakening – Designs to Nurture Our Land and Ourselves being born, which imparts so much wisdom to people who are fashioning their own gardens and wild places.  The book was written at night, over four years, when her two young children were asleep… and Mary was almost awake. 

Mary has appeared on numerous television programs, and podcasts. She regularly offers talks and workshops about her work.  To learn about Mary, visit her website www.marymary.ie 

On this Halloween edition of We Dig Plants, hosts Alice and Carmen are joined by Mary Reynolds, a landscape designer and author of the book The Garden Awakening: Designs To Nurture Our Land and Ourselves. The book is a step by step instruction manual drawing on ancient methods of working with the land and using them to invite the power and energy of nature back into your life and surround your house and life in its life giving healing embrace.

Introduction to the book:

Everything becomes simple if you immerse yourself in nature. Life’s complications melt away, leaving only the truth of the present moment, and the presence of what I call God. In this place we can see our soul reflected in every living thing, every gust of wind and splash of rain, and here we can find peace. This is our true home. Yet we are losing what little wild places we have left in nature, those corners where the spirits of the earth are flowing freely, where harmony, and balance still exists and we feel accepted for the truth of who we are. We have gone off course and need to find our way again. An old pathway, overgrown and forgotten, is waiting impatiently to lead us back home. Nature is willing us on.

A feature length movie based on Mary's true life story will be released in 2016. This focuses on the story of Mary's journey to build a gold medal winning garden at the Chelsea flower show.