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MARY REYNOLDS IS modest about her garden and landscape designs – which is refreshing, as well as charming. Her restraint hides a busy mind and a well thought out view of the world. Her approach is largely benign, as she is acutely aware of her place as one of many organisms sharing this planet.

She has been described as a sustainable designer, but she balks at this. “The words don’t really go together, because I shape the earth and do things that shouldn’t really be done.” She realises that, when she brings in earth-moving machinery to make her characteristic gentle curves and mounds on the land, she is causing huge disruption to the existing plants and creatures on that particular patch. “The initial work has an impact, but I’m trying then to make an ecosystem that sustains itself.”