Creating your own “Ark” landscape design has never been easier
Here is your opportunity to have Chelsey Gold Medal winning landscape designer Mary Reynolds create a garden of your dreams based around her concept of creating Arks. A natural landscape or woodland garden based on native plants for wildlife.
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.
Perfect grass: Waste of time or ideal backdrop?
So you’ve got a perfect lawn. That don’t impress me much. In fact, the perfect lawn is becoming a thing of the past for anyone who cares about the environment. It’s time to explore a more naturalized landscape that is becoming popular as more gardeners realize the environmental impact of traditional lawns.
Is it time to replace lawns with more ecological alternatives?
“So, you’ve got a perfect lawn. That don’t impress me much.”
Every time I look out into a sea of perfectly manicured green grass, complete with in-ground sprinklers, an annual contract with the local lawn pesticide company and an obsession with a common non-native ground cover that, quite frankly, is a boring monoculture, I cringe.
Sure, a little grass might have its place, but it pales in comparison to a beautiful, healthy garden full of native plants that attract pollinators, butterflies and other fauna. Slowly more homeowners are understanding the horrors that a massive sweep of perfect lawn can bring to a landsccape. Extensive use of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides combining into a lethal brew that not only kills the soil the grass depends on, but leaks into our rivers and streams or into our wastewater where taxpayers are forced to pay to clean it again.
And, to make matters worse, that perfect lawn does not come cheap.
That might be the reason more and more homeowners are choosing to actually cover their property with an expensive carpet of synthetic lawn, all in the name of obtaining the look of a “perfectly boring lawn.”
For those who think the synthetic lawn is the ideal alternative, consider its potential environmental impacts: it absorbs heat, has to be sanitized from pet waste, it compacts the soil under it, and restricts any real hope of encouraging insects and worms to flourish either above or below ground.
Used sparingly, synthetic grass has its place I guess. It can solve some common problems homeowners in small urban yards face. But there are probably better, less expensive and more environmental friendly alternative ground covers or mulch that can get the job done.
Grass is without a doubt the most expensive ground cover you could choose
In fact, that green grass so many homeowners strive for is costing them big time.
In our front garden, all the grass has long since gone, replaced by plants, trees, groundcovers, stone, rocks and natural cedar mulch.
One estimate has the average cost of an American homeowner, just to water the lawn, at about $570 a year. That doesn’t take into account so many other factors including environmental/ethical costs of achieving that perfect green lawn.
There are the chemical pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers (banned in many Canadian cities), lawn repair, aerating, rolling, dethatching and it goes on and on. Oh, and let’s not forget the cost of the tools needed to keep the lawn looking perfect.
The bigger the lawn, the more expensive the tools. Consider a riding lawn mower valued at about $2,000 for your average model. You can pay more, a lot more, if you really want to cut that beautiful lawn in style. Forking out $3,000 for the pleasure of owning a machine to cut your lawn for 5-6 months a year would not be an exageration.
If a riding mower is unnecessary or out of the price range, a regular high quality lawnmower should set you back between $500-$700. There’s even robot mowers that will set you back several thousand dollars. Then there are the the must-own, loud and obnoxious gas-powered edgers, the leaf blowers that now seem to have become grass-clipping blowers or dust movers in most urban neighbourhoods.
Add the heavy, lawn-crushing rollers homeowners have been convinced are vital for that perfect lawn.
Yes, crushing what little air is left in the sickly, chemical-filled soil so the lawn looks flat is critical. Following a good rolling, is when the aerators come out to pull plugs out of the soil to add back some of the air that was just taken out of the soil by the heavy roller. And, let’s not forget the deep-grass rakers known to remove thatch – better known by gardeners as organic material slowly breaking down naturally into the infertile soil.
And the fall brings out the leaf vaccums because no grass worshipper would want to leave any organic matter on the lawn or garden to break down and improve the soil.
Does anyone else see the absurdity in all this?
It’s difficult to put a real price on this lawn obsession, but it’s clear there are a lot of companies making a big-time profit on homeowners’ blind obsession with their lawns.
One person who decided to dig into his monthly water usage compared the same time period from May 13 to August 11th. He found that during this period his water usage went from 9,724 gallons of water to a whopping 19,448 during the same period year-to-year.
What made the stats even more alarming was that the difference was almost entirely attributed to one month - the month of May. The water usage in that month alone went from 8,700 gallons to 2,251 gallons. The reason? He watered his lawn every other day because he chose to lay new sod in the front yard. His lawn is small, requiring moving his sprinkler only once to cover the entire front property and he only watered for 15 minutes at each location.
What was the real price of laying that beautiful new sod?
Just think of how much water is being used on larger properties to obtain the perfect lawn.
It’s absurd.
Here are a few things to consider:
• The average homeowner spends up to 100 hours every year walking behind a noisy, exhaust-spewing lawn mower.
• In 2005, lawns covered an estimated 63,000 square miles of America - about the size of Texas
• Most brands of grass seed contain almost nothing but Kentucky bluegrass and other introduced species not built for most Canadian or American backyard conditions.
• A typical cost for spring treatment by a lawn care company can range from $300 to $500 that include aeration and power raking (both unhealthy choices for your lawn.)
•The biggest drain on our water resources during the summer is outdoor use, primarily lawn and garden watering, according to a British Columbia, Canada report. Compared to residents’ winter water use, summer use is close to 65 per cent more.
• In many areas throughout North America, most of the rainfall or precipitation occurs in the winter months, not the summer.
• A garden hose can deliver (and waste if left on) more than 600 litres (132 gallons) of water an hour.
• A typical lawn needs a maximum of 25 mm (one inch) of water per week. Any more is likely wasted and is beginning to cut off oxygen to the roots of the grass and threatening its vigour.
Why do we love our lawns so much?
Lawns are the most grown crop in the United States. That’s sad when you think that no-one gets any nutritional value out of this so called crop. Lawns are grown simply to make the fronts of homes fit in with the neighbourhood and the homeowners look and feel good about themselves.
In Britain, TV gardening superstar Danny Clarke revealed recently that small garden lawns are one of the most common mistakes he sees gardeners in that country make. Danny says sacrificing border size for lawn is a mistake he is seeing over and over again. The result is tiny, narrow borders with little room for more than one or two plants stretching along a fence.
Even in the official birth place of the lawn, gardeners are realizing the amount of work lawns, even small ones, take to maintain. Clarke explains, “You spend more time mowing your lawn and looking after it than you do tending to your plants.”
He goes on to explain that “lawns never look 100 per cent unless you are on them 24/7, weeding and feeding them. To keep a lawn looking good you need to be mowing it, believe it or not, at least once a day.”
Well, I’m not sure about cutting it every day, but the longer you allow grass to grow, the more stress you put it under with each cut.
Clarke goes on to explain: If I had a small garden I wouldn’t have a lawn. I would ban lawns and just have plants. Plants are what makes your garden. If you want an aesthetically pleasing space, then the more plants you have in there the better”
• If you are considering creating a meadow in your front or backyard, be sure to check out The Making of a Meadow post for a landscape designer’s take on making a meadow in her own front yard.
On our property the lawn is almost gone
On our property, the lawn has slowly disappeared over the 20 plus years we’ve lived here. What once took about 1.5 hours of lawn cutting and edging, now takes maybe 10 minutes. All the grass has been removed in our front garden, and about 90 per cent removed from the back. All that actually remains is a small round patch in the middle of the yard that acts as an open area and forest edge for the plants and trees in the perimeter.
According to an article in Scientific American: “To have a well maintained lawn is a sign to others that you have the time and/or the money to support this attraction. It signifies that you care about belonging and want others to see that you are like them.”
The long history of lawns
The lawn as we know it was invented in the 18th century for English country estates. In those days, owners could count on a cool, rainy climate in addition to an army of servants to keep up with the yard work. Introduced to North America a few decades later, European turf grasses like Kentucky bluegrass allowed North Americans to grow a patch of green on their property as a symbol of prosperity.
Well, at least we could try. Lawn care experts say most Canadian homeowners set themselves up for a war against nature they cannot win using the standard arsenal of non-native turf grasses—no matter how many hours of labour, gallons of water and piles of fertilizer they employ.
To this day, lawns continue to be a sign of financial success. Many homeowners hire landscapers to guarantee the perfect lawn without having to invest their own time to cutting, bagging and edging their lawns.
But the days of the perfect lawn are disappearing fast. Water, pesticide and herbicide restrictions, along with increased awareness of the environmental costs, possibly through increased social media presence, are forcing homeowners to rethink the value of a wasteful lawn.
Lawns are thirsty and bad for the environment
According to Scientific American: Lawns require the equivalent of 200 gallons of drinking water per person per day.” It reports that Californians, for example, have taken to shaming (#droughtshame) neighbours who persist in watering their lawns.”
As Bob Dylan once wrote: “The times they are a changin.”
Even if older Canadian and American homeowners refuse to give up their perfect lawns without a fight, their more environmental-aware children are slowly adopting a more natural landscape design aesthetic.
One only needs to take in the garden designs beginning to dominate shows like the famed Chelsey Flower Show in England to see that naturalized gardens are more and more on-trend. The growing movement embraced by a younger generation reflects a more natural lifestyle and the return of naturalized lawns welcoming more native wildflowers, encouraging clover and other flowering weeds.
Over the course of more than 20 years in our home, my wife and I have eliminated 80-90 percent of the grass on the property. It’s been a long, arduous journey but I have gone from probably two hours of lawn mowing to maybe 10 minutes. The great swaths of grass have been replaced by living and non-living ground covers. Natural cedar mulch river rock and pea gravel make up the non-living ground cover, while sedum, ferns, mosses, and traditional ground covers make up the remainder of the living mulch.
Gardening on a budget links
Ten money-saving tips for the weekend gardener
DIY Bark Butter feeder for Woodpeckers
DIY reflection pond for photography
Click & Grow is ideal for Native Plants from seed
Remove your turf and save money
Hiring students to get your garden in shape
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