Mary Reynolds caused a stir when she became Ireland’s first gold medal winner at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2002 in a category which included Britain’s Prince Charles.
Reynolds raised eyebrows for her Celtic Sanctuary garden’s lack of convention, which harboured common weeds, a fairy mound and wild rabbit droppings, among other idiosyncrasies.
Mary will be appearing at the Kinsale Arts Festival on the 26th and 27th of September where she will give a workshop on how to grow your own Celtic Sanctuary.
The workshop will cover a system she has developed based on old Irish ways of working with the land to grown an abundant supply of living food.
So even if you have a tiny garden in a city you can still grow a magical healing garden.
A gardening client of Reynolds, Vivienne DeCourcy, was so taken with the story of Reynolds’ unlikely win at the Chelsea Flower show that she turned it into a film, which will be released next year.
It will star American-born actress Ella Greenwell, best known for her role in the US version of Shameless, as Reynolds. Listen back to the interview here:
