Mary designs Arks.
Acts of restorative kindness to the earth.
I have come full circle with garden and landscape design. Now I want you to give any land under your care back to nature, to re-wild, to be Arked.
I 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.
I 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.
This will enrich your life in ways you cannot imagine, give it meaning and beauty.
Build an Ark and become part of the global movement to restore the earth back to health.
This service is available for private and public places. Every small patch of the planet that is restored to health, matters.
I offer various services to suit whatever project you’re planning. Please choose 1 from the drop down menu in the form below & leave a message with a brief explanation. I will get back to you with more details.
1. Speaker. I can be booked to give inspirational talks on our relationship with land and nature, our need to step back into our roles as caretakers of the planet, and my favourite subject ‘We are the Ark’. if asked nicely.
2. An online advice hour over Skype or Zoom. Send on some comprehensive photos of your land and I can talk through ideas with you. Please note that this is not a gardening advice service. It is for Ark development and design. www.wearetheark.org
3. An on-site consultancy which involves myself arriving on site to meet you and your land, then offering advice, ideas and guidance for your individual piece of land to develop its wildlife supporting potential and creating spaces within the land for spending time, growing food and building a magical connection with your land. I will spend approximately 3 hours on site with you talking things through. If I am working out of the country, I would be asking you to consider a skype consultation as I do not want to travel unless absolutely necessary.
4. 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.
The process usually takes approximately 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 under an acre in size.
5. Skype consultation. This is a good way to get the 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 skype 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 Arks requirements and call you back as required during the day, finally presenting it by skype and scanning the drawings and emailing them to you the following day. 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 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.
Thank you Gitte for this endorsement of our Skype consult!
Thanks for Skype, thanks to Mary and thanks to the universe. I just have my garden design by Mary Reynolds via Skype!! Great experience – it is a dream that has come true. Thank you very much, Mary, you are the greatest, and I am sure you are in direct contact with the gods. You have drawn the most amazing garden to me that meets all my needs and wishes (and more). I have long dreamed of getting Mary to design a garden for me, but thought that it would never be possible because I live in Denmark (and Mary is a super famous designer J). When I found out that it was possible to do it via Skype, I had do it right away. It has been a fantastic experience.
6. Full landscape Ark design service. A full, creative ark design process from concept drawing to supervising design implementation service.
The survey.
Options 3,4 & 5 involve getting a landscaping survey done. It must be prepared and sent to me by post at a scale of 1:100 in advance. The price of the survey is separate and is to be paid directly to the person appointed to carry this out. The survey needs to include the boundary of the land, the position of the house and all existing features such as driveways, paths, outbuildings, percolation units, garden features. Also, all areas of planting must be indicated, including the position and spreads of all existing trees. Most importantly (especially for the full design package), the contour lines of the land showing the level changes. Any local architect or engineer might know who would prepare this for you.
Please note that this document is only valid currently. I may decide at any point to give up and spend all my time growing food, writing and raising two and four legged creatures….. who knows what the world will bring!
Thank you for the endorsement Rikke!
It was a great pleasure to work from distance with Mary Reynolds. The virtuel meetings worked perfect. The result was stunning. The dialog was positive and Mary implemented all of my fluffy thoughts very well. I can highly recommend the remote design process.
– Rikke Lock Harvig, Civil Engineer, Project Manager in a public Food Forest Garden and member of the City Council, Sonderborg, Denmark