Mary is quite contrary

Mary Reynolds caused a stir when she became Ireland’s first gold medal winner at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2002 in a category which included Britain’s Prince Charles.

The Royal Horticultural Society, the august body that has been staging the contest since 1862, was sceptical when she applied for an entry. She was only 28 years of age at the time, so young she “sounded like a child on the phone”.

“At the time,” she says, “I was incredibly naïve, and I didn’t realise what was involved. That was a blessing. It was a mixture of two things — luck and, I don’t know what the polite term for it is — balls.