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Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Landscape Designer Mary Reynolds

Mary's Gold winning Garden at Chelsea 2002, Tearmann sí – A celtic sanctuary
So this post is a first for Stone Art's Blog: throughout the past two years or so that I have been writing this blog I have highlighted many artisans and stonemasons. However this post is the first time I have highlighted a landscape designer. And who better to begin with than one of my favourite Irish designers, award winning landscape designer Mary Reynolds.

Landscape Designer Mary Reynolds

Mary Reynolds, the first Irish winner of a Chelsea Flower Show Gold Medal for garden design, started her landscape design company in 1997, where she began her professional career designing gardens in and around  Dublin city. However over time she began to feel that city life was suppressing her creativity so she moved out of the city to the “wild west “of the Wicklow Mountains. As soon as she got back into the wilderness, not only did she feel inspired for the first time, but she aslo knew where it was that she wanted to bring her skills.

Mary felt the gardens she had been designing in the city were lacking, because they did not have that depth of soul that exists everywhere in wild places. Being once again surrounded by wilderness, Mary realized that this beautiful natural wilderness that is of such great inspiration to her as well as others was disappearing fast because people had become disconnected from it and had forgotten the importance of that connection, so she took it upon herself to create gardens that would bring this connection back into peoples lives.
Tearmann sí – A celtic sanctuary
In 2002 at just 28 years of age, Mary entered the RHS Chelsea Flower Show with her garden ‘Tearmann sí – A Celtic Sanctuary’. Inspired by the Wicklow countryside and her love for Irish mythology, Mary’s garden consisted of a circular stone moon gate lead over a stone path to the inner circle, where the elements of earth, air, fire and water combine. Surrounding the central circle was a grass mound carpeted with bluebell, inspired by Tara Hill in County Meath. Hawthorn and elder, two trees that feature in Celtic lore, formed a protective circle around the very edge of the garden. Enclosing the garden was a traditional dry stone wall, planted with native Irish plants, such as yarrow, thrift, hart's tongue, maidenhair and spleenwort.

Mary's Garden at Kew Gardens
As a result of her Chelsea victory in 2002, the British Government commissioned Mary to design a garden for the world-famous Botanical Gardens at Kew in London.
The garden is based on the imagery and atmosphere of the poem "The Stolen Child" by Irish poet W.B. Yeats.
Mary's Garden at Kew Gardens
Mary was also commissioned to design Brigit’s Gardens in Galway. Brigit’s gardens consists of four interlinked gardens, based on the Celtic festivals of Samhain, Imbolc, Bealtaine and Lughnasa that provide beautiful and tranquil reflective places and are a celebration of nature and the cycle of life.

Imbolc Spring Garden at Brigit's Garden
She had started on the project before her Chelsea win and completed the design later in 2002.
Samhain Winter Garden at Brigit's Gardens
I visited these wonderful gardens a few months ago, but there is so much going on at these gardens I am going to write a separate post about them at a later stage, so that I can write about this magical place in more detail now.
Bealtaine Summer Garden at Brigit's Garden
Lughnasa Autumn Garden at Brigit's Garden 
Some Mary’s favourite materials and structures to incorporate in her designs include stone, sculpted earth shapes, mosaic, living willow structures and cob structures. She also likes to incorporate native planting and Irish mythology.  It is all these qualities that make her one of my favourite Irish designers. I also love that she often includes stone seats. As well as being one of my favourite things to build from stone I have also written about stone seats and their importance in Irish folklore on a number of occasions. 

Here are a few other gardens by Mary that I find inspiering.

The Glenstal garden
Stone seating in The Glenstal garden
Cornwall seaside garden
Cornwall seaside garden
 
Cornwall seaside garden
Photographs courtesy of Mary’s website with her kind permission. Be sure to check out her website for more information and photos of her work on  http://www.maryreynoldsdesigns.com/

20 comments:

  1. I'm impressed by these, though a little uncertain about the scale. I'm trying to decide whether what I would make of the giant head in real life!

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  2. Lovely post! What a talented designer and adore the use of stone - inspiring pictures, Thanks for sharing :)

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  3. What a fantastic blog post! Thank you so much for sharing these inspiring examples ...Bravo.

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  4. This is indeed very impressive as well as inspiring... then again, your posts are always inspiring and very much appreciated by me! Larry

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  5. Your posts are always so magnificent! Everything you share is beautiful and I wish I could visit these in person..i would be in pure bliss! Gorgeous photographs..magical!
    Thanks kindred
    Kiki

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  6. Such an amazing body of work for someone so young. Her designs are truly magical and the completed stonework is absolutely amazing. I have enjoyed visiting her blog, too, and marveling at her work, truly inspirational!

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  7. Hypnotising! What a talent! Thank you for post!!!

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  8. Impressively talented indeed! Her works are awesome. Wish I could create something like that for patios.

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  9. her free-flowing walls and multi level areas are truly inspiring and well done.... would love to collaborate...

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  10. The art of Mary Reynolds leaves me breathless. Her interpretation of 'The Stolen Child' is both thought provoking and inspiring.

    "Come away, O human child!
    To the waters and the wild
    With a faery, hand in hand. . ."

    Stone Art has quickly become a favorite read. Thank you for sharing Mary's talent with me.

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  11. I remember following Mary's win at Chelsea. It was so exciting to witness her deep understanding of incorporating the wild and the naturalised into her design. There is something magical and lacking in ego about her approach to nature.....lovely to discover your blog.....you are quite talented yourself too:~)

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  12. Amazing garden, magnificent works of stone.

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  13. Aesthetic and professionally designed stone work, thanks for posting.

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  14. All of these pictures are absolutly amazing, I wonder if you could do something like that with synthetic grass? Thanks so much for sharing.

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  15. fantastic post and amazing photos. Keep up the great work.

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  16. I don't know about you guys but I like these!It requires a lot of talent and hard work to come up with that beautiful masterpiece!

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  17. well done. really you have shared very interesting points in this blog. I am glad to say that the above posts are really fantastic. Good job. Keep up. Thank you so much.

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  18. Particularly, that was an astonishing picture of a sleeping man or woman statue. Wonder if that is made from stone or hardened mud or cement.

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