Mary Reynolds Designs

Liam Griffin is a legend in County Wexford. One of the counties inspiring forces, driving and motivating Wexford to win the hurling final in 1996. As the proprietor of Monart, he is an inspirational man and his vision was to create a world class destination spa resort in this beautiful woodland setting in Enniscorthy. It’s been wonderful to watch his vision come true.

He wanted me to create a garden that reflected the ethos of the resort, which was “Return to your true nature”. It was a difficult enough brief.  The shape of the buildings is a semi-circle so the gardens were being viewed from multiple angles. I had to create a central focal point, so I designed a lake and a waterfall crossed by two stone bridges that look like they have been there forever due to wonderful craftsmanship. We created walkways through the grounds that allowed people to experience the healing power of nature. There are many discoveries to make in the gardens including a fabulous living willow labyrinth, based on the Hollywood (Co. Wicklow) labyrinth from 5000 years ago carved into a rock now found in the National museum. This labyrinth is a moving meditation and gives people moments to themselves in an ancient tradition.

Monart is an example of a commercial project which was a compromise of my generally completely native planting schemes to allow for more conventional planting (albeit in a wild style) to satisfy the brief. It works very well. I remember Liam looking at me often as if I was completely mad, when I was suggesting a plant list that sounded like a list of all the plants people remove from their flower beds. But fair play to him, he was a brave man and met me half way and the result is an interesting mix of wild and ornamental. Last time I visited it was lovely to hear him talk about the beauty of certain wildflowers like ox-eyed daisies, sheep bit scabious and other native flowers that he saw suited the subtlety of his ethos so much more than a mad palette of herbaceous colour would have done. The gardens are being cared for beautifully by Paddy Gahan and are constantly developing.

It is becoming more and more recognised that people need to spend time in nature in order to breath and ground themselves. I get a lot of feedback from people who have visited my gardens and the one constant is that they will always tell me of a place they remember from when they were small. A particular tree they used to hide in surrounded by primroses or a field near their house where they could hide in a grove of gnarled old holly trees, everyone has a different story but we all have that memory of a special place, infused with the spirit of nature. What worries me is that a lot of kids growing up these days don’t have that experience. Imagine if the only experience you had of nature was a city park and you never knew the beauty of a native hedgerow or a field of yellow irises. Imagine if you only knew the dead controlled spaces of a city and had no connection whatsoever with our wild living landscape. That would be such a sad loss. I hope things will change to allow people the right to those wonderful childhood memories, and to bring those landscapes through to their adulthood and preserve what is left of them.