Creating your own “Ark” landscape design has never been easier
Mary Reynolds’ gift makes it all possible
Chelsea award-winning Irish landscape designer, Mary Reynolds, has given the world too many gifts to count, but her latest gift might just be her most inspiring.
Especially if you are the one either giving it, or, even better, on the beneficiary end.
Mary, both an accomplished author and landscaper designer, has been working hard over the past several years to help homeowners and especially gardeners develop a new appreciation for a more “wild landscape” – one that respects native plants and the wildlife that either calls it home or would love to make it their home.
Landscape designer Mary Reynolds is now offering readers in North America and elsewhere the opportunity to have her help create a landscape design for their properties.
She has developed an entire movement and website (We Are The Ark) around creating “Arks” in the suburban and rural landscapes. These Arks act as stepping stones across the landscape, where pollinators, birds and even mammals can find refuge and habitat they can call home.
“Every thread of the web we remove through human expansion, destruction and pollution, could be the last thread holding it all together and we just dont know when it is all going to fall apart. If you want to save the planet, start with your own patch of it. ”
Why is it so important for homeowners to develop their Ark?
Mary explains, over email, to Ferns & Feathers that it is increasingly important for homeowners to consider creating an Ark.
“Because the web of life is collapsing. We have lost 70 per cent of all our earth’s wild creatures since 1970 when the ‘green’ revolution kicked in and the population exploded. With the collapse in insect populations and the 75 per cent loss of our topsoil, we are looking at a catastrophic collapse of the earth’s ability to provide us with clean air, water, food and shelter,” Mary explains.
“Every thread of the web we remove through human expansion, destruction and pollution, could be the last thread holding it all together and we just don’t know when it is all going to fall apart.”
Mary urges homeowners to recognize their role in saving the planet, even if it is just a small patch in an urban environment.
“If you want to save the planet, start with your own patch of it. Set your land free and support it to become a native plant ecosystem, removing the non natives and importing as many locally sourced native plant layers as possible. These are the plant communities that have evolved alongside their local insects and mammals who cannot survive without them. We have to make a patchwork quilt of hope for nature, for the seeds of restoration to spring forth when the time comes.”
Her website already tracks the number of people who have created their own Arks and marked them on her arkivist world map.
To date, there are more than 1,000 documented Arks, including about 320 in the United States and Canada. Mary hopes her individual and more personalized assistance will help boost that number.
Now, Mary wants to offer her services to help even more homeowners turn their properties into “Arks.”
Landscape designer Mary Reynolds is offering to help howmowners in North America and elsewhere create their own Arks.
And, for homeowners in the United States and Canada, she will provide the service all on line.
She tells Ferns & Feathers that she is ready for the onslaught of requests undoubtedly coming her way.
“I have been doing online consultations for a couple of years now across the world, the complexities are not too hard, most places have similar problems, and simple, if often different solutions,” Mary explains.
Giving wildlife a place to prosper in your garden is an important part of creating your own Ark.
Why do we need an Ark?
Mary points out on the website that the earth is “losing 150 to 200 species to extinction every single day. Each species lost is lost FOREVER.
Biodiversity is short for “Biological diversity”.
Biodiversity is “the variety of all living things, and the systems which connect them.” This includes all the planet’s different plants, animals and micro- organisms, plus the genetic information they contain and the ecosystems of which they are a part.”
An incredible opportunity to build your Ark
It’s an incredible opportunity to have a Chelsea Gold-Medal winning landscape designer dig into your landscape and help transform it into a woodland/wildlife refuge.
Mary, of course, is not limited to “woodland” designs, but given that this website is dedicated to woodland/wildlife design and Mary has gone on record saying that most land wants to revert back to a woodland style, the odds are good that the design will lean in that direction.
In the announcement, Mary said she “wants you to give any land under your care back to nature, to re-wild, to be Arked.”
Mary Reynolds’ first book Garden Awakening, where she introduced the concept of creating Arks to the world of gardening.
“The hour consultation is a zoom call where I have been supplied with photos and short videos of their land. Then we talk through each area discussing how to increase the sanctuary there for the local wildlife in all its forms,” explains Mary.
“Also we work out how to weave the guardians’ own needs in with these ideas. The sketch designs are more detailed and are to scale, mapping out a concept design for you to work with on your own land, though I need a proper land survey for that option, with all of the existing trees, plants, paths etc,” Mary says, adding that the on-line services will be an ongoing service for homeowners and businesses.
Anywhere in the world, Mary can work online with you, from an hour long consultation to a full ARK design.
In particular, Mary “can help you design a space that allows for the maximum amount of edges and ecotones, the most diverse range of habitats you can fit into your land. A magical place for your family to enjoy and protect, which will be hopping with life and beauty. A sanctuary for all of the native creatures that need it, places to rest and recover and finally thrive.”
“She will guide you to understand how to step in and provide the ecosystem services required to maintain that diversity going forward, to replace the missing parts of the web of life that we have broken. To become the wolf, the deer, the beaver.
To be a Guardian, not a gardener.
To be an Arkevist.”
There are several approaches homeowners can take to have Mary design their gardens.
Mary is asking readers to email her with the property’s size, and some photos to receive a quote for the work.
All of the details are available at her website (link.) Below are excerpts from her website to give readers a better understanding how the process may work.
• An online advice hour over Skype or Zoom: Send a number of comprehensive photos of your land, a google maps pin so we can look at it from above and even some very short videos (less than 1 minute if possible). Once I have all the information, I can talk through ideas with you over zoom. Please note that this is not a gardening advice service. It is for Ark development and design. €184.50 (€150 plus VAT @ 23%) (approximately $230 US, or $310 Cdn. to be paid before the appointment.)
An on-site consultancy including a design: This involves me coming to visit you, at your home, where we sit down and I sketch a design out over a pre-prepared landscape survey of the site (which you will have provided from a surveyor), creating spaces within the land for spending time, growing food, building a magical connection between your land and yourself and supporting wildlife to share the land with you. I draw up a scaled master plan before I leave. However, there will be no detailed construction details or detailed drawings, but you will be able to work with a contractor using the master plan or use it yourself to develop your Ark.
If I am working out of the country, I would be asking you to consider an online design consultation as I do not want to travel unless absolutely necessary.
The process usually takes 3 – 4 hours on site (I will need a dry warm space with a large table to work on). In order to give you a definite price I need you to email me some photographs of the land so I can see how big it is, as size is everything in terms of the amount of design involved. But I usually manage most gardens in the one day, if the areas I am designing are not too complicated and under an acre in size.
Online Design Consultation: This is a good way to get the Mary design experience if you are a distance away.
“I will work on a survey pre-prepared and sent to me before the appointment date. I can get to talk to you by zoom in the morning to hear the design brief and feel into the situation. Then I will work on the design to get a good solution for both the client and the Ark’s requirements and call you back as required during the day, finally presenting it by zoom and scanning the drawings and emailing them to you day following completion.”
“You will end up with a good overall master plan to work towards yourself, or to use in conjunction with a contractor to manifest the design on the ground, or develop the Ark yourself.”
“However, there will be no detailed construction details or planting details. As I am not spending time travelling to the site, I get to spend more time at the design during the day and it is a good solution for people a distance away.”
In order to give you a definite price I would need you to send me photographs of the land so I can see how big it is, as size is everything in terms of the amount of design involved! But I usually manage most gardens in the one day, if the areas I am designing are not too complicated and under an acre in size.
However, there is also the cost of the survey, which needs to be emailed to me before I begin so that I can do some preparation drawings. The survey is a separate contract which doesn’t involve my input and best organized locally to your site.
The amount of information Mary will need will depend on how detailed a plan you are looking for her to design.