DARE TO BE WILD
ADMIT ONE
This 2015 film is based on events in the life of Irish garden designer and nature advocate Mary Reynolds, focusing on the unusual garden design that won her a gold medal at the 2002 Chelsea Flower Show, another major annual UK horticultural event. Reynolds set some records with that 2002 win. At 28, she was the youngest winner ever. She was also only the third Irish person to construct a garden at Chelsea—even though the show had been recurring for 89 years before her triumph.
Reynolds’s winning design was called “Celtic Sanctuary.” It married elements of Celtic mythology and the wild Irish landscape in which she grew up. The unconventional design, enclosed by a traditionally constructed drystone wall, included everyday weeds, a fairy mound and rabbit droppings. Native Irish plants—more than 500 of them— were used extensively, including mature hawthorns from west Cork. At the garden’s center, an inner circle featured four huge stone thrones and a central stone fire bowl.
I loved the hand-drawn garden designs shown in the movie. The drama, including a foray into Ethiopia and a love story between Reynolds and builder/environmentalist Christy Collard, plays out against lush scenery. Collard helped construct Celtic Sanctuary for the Chelsea Flower Show, and he recreated it for the set of Dare to be Wild.
One of Reynolds’s aims with Celtic Sanctuary was to represent wild nature, which her current advocacy work emphasizes. I think this film does a good job of suggesting how gardeners might invite more wildness into the spaces they love and curate.