The Garden Awakening

Bring in the energy of wild places and work in harmony with the land to grow your own food and live sustainably.

In this beautifully illustrated book, award-winning garden designer Mary Reynolds encourages us to create a bond with the land to restore its health and feel its energy. Drawing inspiration from permaculture traditions as well as the ancient multi-tiered approach of forest gardening, Mary demonstrates how to create a magical garden that is an expanding, living, interconnected ecosystem.

The Garden Awakening is both art and inspiration for any garden lover seeking to create a positive and natural space while incorporating sustainable living such as growing your own food. It combines practical step-by-step instructions with spiritual, ancient Celtic stories to help you awaken any garden space, nurturing it to benefit both the land and the people in it. This design approach allows ecosystems to be whole and in balance while providing a place for human beings to live happy and productive lives.

Transform your garden into a vibrant, wild area that embraces the spiritual side of nature with this wonderful read.

“We know truth when we hear it, we know it when we see it, those who still have some contact with their soul and the soul of the earth. Mary Reynolds has been appointed a guide, something she possibly didn't ask for, but that's been bestowed upon her capable shoulders. She has a punk-like reluctance in her writing that I believe. She's really onto something, we must nurture the wildness within us, and see the beauty in the wildness without. She connects back to a deep past, to a timeless growth and regrowth, to the natural, to the voices moving in the land, to a church not made by hands.”

This is a fantastic book... I absolutely love the way that [it] captures the spirituality of the land and the magic of nature. Jane Goodall, anthropologist and primatologist

The Garden Awakening re-awakens sweet memories of my childhood and a love for nature. Mary Reynolds book is like an inspirational ‘clarion call’ to all of us humans to reconnect again with nature, where many of us are caught and suffocate in a pressurized, exploitative, dysfunctional concrete jungle.

Duncan Stewart, eco-architect, environmentalist & TV presenter
A new manifesto for working with nature, The Garden Awakening seeks to re-establish our vital link with the world they live in. Mary Reynolds knows there is more, much more, to the outdoors than pretty gardens and her new book sets to show how you can unlock nature’s secrets by immersion in what’s around you. Jim Carroll, journalist, writer and broadcaster
Gifted with the Irish heritage of great story-telling, Mary weaves a fine tapestry of stories instilled with ancient druidic wisdom, which she offers helpful practical ways of applying in the modern world. The Garden Awakening is a truly wonderful and highly inspiring read. Markéta Irglová, Grammy and Oscar winning singer songwriter/actor
Mary Reynolds weaves a wonderful tapestry in which the garden is not only a resilient, productive and healthy space that provides food, it is also a magical place of beauty, peace and inner nurture. Maddy Harland, Permanent Publications
Mary Reynolds has been appointed a guide, something she possibly didn’t ask for, but that’s been bestowed upon her capable shoulders.... She connects back to a deep past, to a timeless growth and regrowth, to the natural, to the voices moving in the land, to a church not made by hands. Glen Hansard, Grammy and Oscar winning singer songwriter and actor
Mary Reynolds is not really a garden designer: at least not in the same way that the rest of us are garden designers. She is a custodian of the earth, a creature of the forest and, above all, a creative spirit whose work is so deeply anchored to the earth that her gardens are always a partnership rather than an imposition. In this book she explains her philosophy, her life and her dreams. You need to listen to her voice as what she says makes perfect sense. James Alexander-Sinclair – RHS judge and television presenter
The Garden Awakening has woken me up. Beautifully written with a message that will open your eyes to a whole new outside world. A revelation. Mary Reynolds preaches harmony. You will be a convert. Eoin Colfer, writer of the Artemis Fowl series
The Garden Awakening offers a treasury of insight and advice for anyone who feels that our culture’s relationship to land has profoundly lost its way and is seeking new inspiration. Her skilful drawing together of history and beauty, her acute appreciation of place, and her belief in taking nature as the model for how we design, together offer us something that feels deeply right and utterly timely. Rob Hopkins, author of The Power of Just Doing Stuff
Garnering insight from permaculture, biodynamics, and her own wonderful weird, [Mary] shows how to deepen the conversation until it becomes both profound and ecstatic. The Garden Awakening reminds us that the natural but hidden connections between soil and soul are at once familiar, comfortable, and sovereign. -- Peter Bane – Author ‘The Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country’
Brims with poetry and mythology and psychology and algebra and geometry and ancient symbols and dream-like parables and other unexpected things. In [Mary's] hands the wounded earth becomes a living, breathing creature: it sighs and moans and remembers. We really should sit up and take notice she tells us – the earth won’t forget. Billy Roche, playwright and actor
The Garden Awakening performs the miracle of waking up and engaging someone like me with no prior interest in gardens; in fact, showing me an idea of the garden quite unlike anything I had ever imagined. This book is not only strikingly original, but lucid, inspiring and soundly practical. Gillies MacKinnon, film director, writer and artist
The Garden Awakening by Mary Reynolds has put into words what gardeners feel they should be doing and know to be true but society doesn’t encourage this way of thinking. Mary has tuned into nature and articulated it better than I have ever read before. Every gardener needs to read this book to empowered themselves to do what their heart desires. Fergal Smith, pro-surfer turned organic farmer
Marvellous... I loved this book and feel that with each passing year it will become more important... a remarkable, inspirational and admirable woman has written a book that should be essential reading for everyone interested in the real meaning of wellbeing in its widest sense. Sir Tim Smit, co-founder of the Eden Project

Mary Reynolds is the youngest woman to win a gold medal at the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show. She is an Irish garden and landscape designer, famous for her wild gardens at Kew Royal Botanical Gardens in London and worldwide. Her life has been the inspiration for a film: Dare to be Wild.

"A remarkable, inspirational and admirable woman has written a book that should be essential reading for everyone interested in the real meaning of wellbeing in its widest sense" - Sir Tim Smit, Executive Vice-Chairman, and Co-founder of the Eden Project "Mary Reynolds is ... a custodian of the earth, a creature of the forest and, above all, a creative spirit whose work is so deeply anchored to the earth that her gardens are always a partnership rather than an imposition." - James Alexander-Sinclair, Royal Horticultural Society council member, garden designer, writer and TV presenter "Mary Reynolds here gives charming and practical expression to the wild, free and joyful voice which beckons us all ... Garden Awakening reminds us that the natural but hidden connections between soil and soul are at once familiar, comfortable and sovereign." - Peter Bane, author The Permaculture Handbook The Garden Awakening is a garden design book with a difference. Mary looks at the land the way a parent looks at a child - as a gift and a responsibility. Learn how to design and nurture a beautiful, vibrant and magical space; bring the energy and atmosphere of wild places into your garden; incorporate sustainable living and growing your own food, in partnership with nature and you will never look at your garden in the same way again.

The Garden Awakening is a garden design book with a difference. Mary re-imagines the garden for the times we live in, looking at land the way a parent looks at a child - as a gift and a responsibility. Learn how to design and nurture a beautiful, vibrant and magical space. Bring the energy and atmosphere of wild places into your garden while incorporating sustainable living, especially growing your own food, all in harmony with nature's own intentions. You will never look at your garden in the same way again.

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