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Garden designer Mary Reynoldsis up in Dublin for the day,cramming in meetings, aninterview with The SundayTimes and a client visit beforerushing back to Wexford. She

arrives at my door after a talk with thecapital’s lord mayor, Críona Ní Dhálaigh,aboutmoresustainablewaysofgardening.Reynolds is radiant, anddressed in a big

tweedcoat, a fetchingcapandsmartankleboots—“Fifteenquid,”shesays, laughing.“I wear them for meetings. I’ve got mywelliesinthecar.”Sheexudeswarmthandkindness, and has a mad, multicolouredlaugh that comes flying out of her.If you’renewtogardening,youmaynot

have heard of Reynolds as she has beenlying low in recent years. She was last inthe public eye on a regular basis on RTE’sSuper Garden television programme,where she was a presenter and mentorfrom 2008 to 2012. Her most remarkablemoment, however,was someyears earlierin 2002 when she won a gold medal atthe Chelsea Flower Show for herTearmann Sí: a Celtic Sanctuary.It was her first (and only) foray into the

mercilessly competitive arena of theworld’smost prestigious gardening event,and at 28 years old, Reynolds was theyoungest female designer towin a gold fora show garden. That year, of the 19 showgardens, justthreewereawardedgold,andthe plot next to hers, designed by PrinceCharles and Jinny Blom, garnered onlya silver.Reynolds’ naturalistic creation drew on

the Wicklow landscape around her thenhome. Enclosed by a dry-stone wall, itfeatured native Irish species includingvenerable, gnarled hawthorns. The rath,monumentalstonethronesandfirebowlatits centre drew on elements of Celticmythology. The garden heralded thehomegrown romanticism of her style.Draughts for her designs are works of

art, intricate and lovingly crafted,painstakingly drawn by hand.“I’m lucky that people don’t ever ask

me to change anything,” she says. Andthengivesagreatyelp-laugh:“Thatwouldbe a problem!”Thedesignerhadacoupleofdizzyyears

following her Chelsea coup: presentingon BBC television and making gardens inseveral countries (including a tribute toYeats’s poemThe Stolen Child at theRoyalBotanic Gardens at Kew in London).At Farmleigh in Dublin, in 2003, she

created Bunchloch (Foundation Stone), agentle, grassy landform with a granitebowl at its heart and concentric ripplespopulated by nine granite “planets”.Not long after, she became a mother,

and the pace had to slow. When her sonwas three and her daughter barely one,

Nature trailYou can check out a trailer for Dare to Be Wild, pictured,on Mary Reynolds’ website, marymary.ie. The film,based on her Chelsea Flower Show adventure in2002, had its firstIrish screeningat last year’sDublin FilmFestival, butit does not go ongeneral releasein Europe untilthis summer.

Grow for itBody of workPick up a copy of TheGarden Awakening:Designs to Nurture ourLand and Ourselves, byMary Reynolds, withbeautiful illustrations,right, by Ruth Evans. It ispublished by Green Books— £19.99 (€25.85) — onMarch 31 and will beavailable in bookshopsnationwide.

Jane digs . . .Flowers, Fruit & Vegetables: a wrapping paper bookfrom the Natural History Museum (Pimpernel Press,amazon.co.uk: €16.80).gardening@sunday-times.ie

PATRICK BROWNE, JOE O’SHEA, MARTINA REGAN AND EMMA COOPER

Reynolds separated from their father andembarked on the perpetually demandinglife of a single parent. She cut back ondesign work, taking on just a handful ofprojects a year. “The kids come first, andeverything else comes second — evenearning a living comes second.We alwayshave enough.We are just lucky,” she says.“I don’t have what you would call a

conventional life.Wedo really simple stufflike go for walks, watch movies and havelots of friends over for dinner. But wedon’t have holidays and all those things.We live on very little, but we have a verynice life, and they are really healthy andhappy, thank God.”That simple life is about to get more

complicated.Thissummerseesthegeneralrelease of Dare to BeWild, starring EmmaGreenwell as Mary Reynolds. The filmcame about when the designer wasworking on a garden for writer anddirector Vivienne de Courcy, who in turnbecame so enchanted by the unlikelyChelsea story that she was determined tobring it to the big screen.The movie, which is generously larded

with romance and magnificent land-scapes, is “uplifting and happy, and verybeautiful”, saysReynolds. “Myself and thekids are going to Japan for the premiere,which is so cool.We’re so excited. It’s a bitlikewinning the lottery.”The designer attended a special

screening in Dublin last year. “I was sonervous.The interviewersaid, ‘So,howdoyou feel about it?’, and I said, ‘Well, thesexscene was interesting. That was the bestsex I’ve had in years.’ And there was justthis deathly silence. And then Viviennelaughed, thank God.”The end of this month brings another

long-term project to fruition when theWexfordwoman’sextraordinarybookTheGardenAwakeningispublished.“Iworkedon it for years: I wrote it at night whenthe kids were asleep.”Thebookwasborneoutofaneedtohelp

JANEPOWERSGARDENS

There’ssomethingcontraryabout MaryWexford designer Reynolds, whose Chelseasuccess is the focus of a new film, says theEarth suffers — and we all need to heal it

Redrow, one of the UK’sbiggest housebuilders, hasjust published remarkableresearch that shatters

notions aboutmarket demand forsustainable building.The company surveyed 1,730

prospective new homebuyers andfound 82%werewilling to paymore for a sustainable home.Most surprisingly, low energy

bills were a higher priority than agarden, parking space, amenities,external appeal/design of thehome, fittings and appliances.The findings aren’t surprising,

as they corroborate Irish studiesI’vementioned here before. Forexample, a report on the effect ofBERs on Irish house prices from2013 and 2015 by economists at theEconomic and Social ResearchInstitute, Trinity College Dublin,Oxford University and the LondonSchool of Economics showed

protest — is restricting demand.Irish peoplemay bewilling to paymore for a sustainable home, but inmany cases they are unable toexpress that demand, limited bywhat the bankswill lend.

Desire for sustainable homes isstrong — so where’s the support?

of its portfolio— but it hindersgetting homes built.Prices are rising but the 20%

deposit requirement onmortgages— a sensiblemove, asmuch as theindustrymight gnash its teeth in

Buyers are increasingly keen to use renewable energy, such as solar power

precisely formulated conceptualtool that clever people havedevised to help us gain anabstract understanding of acomplexworld.“It does not, nor should it be

expected to, give us in addition anaccurate and complete descriptionof any particular real-worldmarket.”This simplistic model is useless

formaking sense of the currentIrish propertymarket, whichremains contaminated by thefestering carcass of the Celtictiger. Supply is inadequate interms of the right kind ofproperties, even in themosttenuously right locations. Thecrashmademany developersbankrupt, or as good as, andwithout the appetite andwherewithal to build homes.The banks are restrictingwhat

theywill lend, so some of thedevelopers returning to buildingare going to third-party financiersto get bridging finance tomakeprojects happen. At the same time,with property prices being pushedup by lack of housing supply in arecovering economy, land pricesare rising.Thatmight suit Nama, which

has a vested interest in seeing landprices rise— and, with it, the value

JEFF COLLEYGREEN LIVING

Ourmarketmust be revamped tohelp the growing numberswillingto paymore for low-energy houses

A-rated homes attract a premiumof 9%-11% comparedwithequivalent D-rated homes.Awarning: those studies looked

at asking prices, so these surveystell us howmuch vendors areasking for rather than howmuchbuyers arewilling, or able, to pay.

Youmight ask that if buyerswant to pay extra for sustainablebuildings, what’s the point inraising energy standards underbuilding regulations, or gettingcouncils tomake the passivehouse standard amandatoryrequirement— as Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown has done? Simplyleave supply and demand to takecare of it?Reality isn’t that simple, and

markets aren’t that efficient. Intheir bookMicroeconomics inContext, economists NevaGoodwin, Julia Nelson, FrankAckerman and ThomasWeisskopf wrote: “Supply anddemand analysis is a useful,

Reductions in taxes anddevelopment levies on new homesare not the answer. In fact, thoughit may be an unpalatable truth tolandowners, tax increases in theform of a site valuation taxwouldhelpmatters by penalising landhoarding.While the departinggovernment’s proposal to offersuch concessions subject to fallingbelow certain price ceilingsappears reasonable, it seemsdifficult to work in practice.Will it encourage developers to

build unviable homes— poor-quality speculative shoeboxes—in the hope people will panic buy?Orwill the government struggle toset the price ceilings at the rightlevel to attract developers, withoutcausing unnecessary priceinflation?A simpler approach is to compel

the banks to offer better lendingterms for low-energy buildings,something I havewritten aboutbefore. This wouldn’t causeproperty price inflation in general,as it wouldn’t manufacture newbuyers out of thin air. Instead, itwould increase demand for newhomes, which tend to bemoreenergy efficient, thanks toimprovements in buildingregulations.If that pushed up new-build

prices, vendors of less-efficienthomeswould have to carry outjob-creating energy upgrades ordrop their prices to compete.Irish people aren’t stupid; they

are bound to share an interest insustainable buildingwith theBritish homebuyers surveyed byRedrow. But onlywhenwe givethem the tools to express thatinterest will we see preferencesturn into action.

people take responsibility for their ownpatches of this Earth. Over the yearsReynolds found that someclients“weren’tprepared to form their own relationshipwith the land. Iwas thego-between.And Icouldn’tholdthatmanyspacesanymore”.The book is far from mainstream, and

one of its central ideas — that land feelspain and joy, andneeds to bemindedwithlove — will be greeted with derision bysome. Nonetheless, however one phrasesit, there is no doubt that our planet isin trouble, and our sloppy and greedystewardship is to blame.“Our role is one of guardian,” says

Reynolds.“It’snotofuserandtaker,which

is what we have been doing. If you see theland as being where everything comesfrom, it’s like our mother — everythingcomesfromtheEarthandheratmosphere.She’s f******worn out, like. She can’t giveus anything else!”So,thebookisabouthowto“stepupand

coponandgrowupandstarttotakecareofthe land” — which may sound fuzzybut it’s not. After showing us how toreawaken our love for our planet, theauthor gives plenty of solid instruction onhow to design, plant and maintain ourgardens sustainably.Reynolds’ approach may be unor-

thodox, but she has no lack of clients. At

present she is working onthe New Ross library parkin Co Wexford. “It is apesticide and herbicide-free park. And if it workstheretheyaregoingtoexpandthe idea, which is wonderful.”Wexfordcountycouncil’swill-

ingnesstogoalongwithherideasisan affirmation of Reynolds’ lifemission: “Initially I was trying tosave theworld and then I realised Icouldn’t — but if I could save mylittle bit, and if everyone savedtheir own little bit, we’d be doingsomething good.”

Mary Reynolds, right, dreamt up, clockwise from above, Brigit’s Garden in Galway, featuring basketwork swings,and the garden at Camel Quarry House in Cornwall, crafting her designs with intricate drawings made by hand