Dan Pearson (garden designer)

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Dan Pearson
OBE
Born
Dan Pearson

(1964-04-09) 9 April 1964 (age 60)
NationalityBritish
Education
  • RHS Garden Wisley (Wisley Cert.(Hons))
  • Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Kew Dip.(Hons))
Occupations
  • Garden designer
  • Garden writer
  • Landscape designer


Websitewww.danpearsonstudio.com

Dan Pearson OBE (born 9 April 1964) is an English landscape designer, specialising in naturalistic perennial planting.

Early life[edit]

Pearson was brought up in an Arts and Crafts house on the Hampshire–Sussex border.[1] His father is a painter who taught fine art at Portsmouth Polytechnic[1] and his mother taught fashion and textiles at Winchester School of Art.[2]

Pearson was employed at a weekend gardening job for Mrs. Pumphrey at Greatham Mill Gardens, Hampshire,[3] which cultivated his interest in gardening. Backed by his parents, at 17, he decided against going to art college and dropped out of his A levels to go to the RHS Garden, Wisley. This was approved by his parents and he became a RHS Wisley trainee on the certificate course.[4] Pearson attended the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh for a year to work in the Rock Garden and the Woodland Garden and went on to complete the three-year Kew Gardens course. Following this he returned to his role maintaining Frances Mossman’s garden at Home Farm in Northampton.[2] Mossman was the creative force behind Next and, later, George at Asda and at Wedgwood.[5] Pearson also undertook student scholarships studying wildflower communities in the Picos de Europa, Spain, and in the Himalayas.[6]

When he was 25 he was named house garden designer at the Conran Shop on Fulham Road.[7] Pearson set up his garden design business in 1987.[2]

Personal life[edit]

Pearson's younger brother,[5] Luke, is a product and furniture designer and a partner in the company Pearsonlloyd.[8][9]

In 2010 Pearson and Huw Morgan restored a late 18th-century house (a 1,500-square-foot two-story buff-coloured stone building with small windows and two chimneys on a red-tiled roof,[7]) with 20 acres of land outside Bath as their home and workplace,[10] called Hillside.[7][11] In a broadcast interview with Kirsty Young on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, Pearson stated that he has known Morgan since the 1990s.

Career[edit]

Since 2002 he has designed gardens and has given lectures around the world, including in the U.K., Italy, U.S. and Japan. [12] He has designed gardens for Jonathan Ive, Paul Smith,[1] venture capitalist Walter Kortschak, art dealer Ivor Braka, real estate businessman Vladislav Doronin,[13] Torrecchia Vecchia for Carlo Caracciolo (the late owner of the Italian newspaper l'Espresso),[14] and his colleague on The Guardian newspaper, Nigel Slater (this garden was a joint effort with Monty Don).[1] He restored the landscape at Althorp House (after Diana's death) after 1997 and worked on the landscape for the Millennium Dome.[1] He has worked at the Botanic Garden of Jerusalem. He designed the roof garden of Roppongi Hills in Japan in 2002.[6] Another large project was the Tokachi Millennium Forest Garden, in Shimizu, Hokkaido, which was featured on the BBC Radio 4 programme Designed in Britain, Built in Japan.[15] Another project is Maggie's Centre in Charing Cross, London.[16] In 2020, he designed a new courtyard garden for The Garden Museum in London.[17]

Pearson has curated six show gardens at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show[2] including in 1992, 1993, 1994,[18] 1996 (with an outstanding roof garden),[19] and 2004 (for Merrill Lynch).[20] In May 2015, he returned to Chelsea Flower Show with the 'Laurent-Perrier Chatsworth Garden', inspired by the Chatsworth estate in Derbyshire.[21] It won a gold medal and 'Best in Show'.[22]

He has working relationships with architects and architectural firms in the UK including Zaha Hadid, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, David Chipperfield Architects, and 6a Architects, London. Pearson was elected a Royal Designer for Industry in 2012.[13] Pearson was the horticultural advisor for Thomas Heatherwick's cancelled Garden Bridge, over the Thames in London.[23]

Honours[edit]

Pearson is a tree ambassador for The Tree Council and a member of the Society of Garden Designers. In 2011, he was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and was a member of the jury for the 2011 RIBA Stirling Prize.[6] At the Garden Media Guild Awards of 2011, he was awarded the prize for 'Inspirational Book of the Year'.[24]

The Garden Museum in Lambeth, London, held an exhibition on his work in 2013. Pearson created a new planting design for the border in front of the Museum.[13]

He was the Winner of the 'House & Garden Garden Designer of the Year' award in 2019 and is listed in House and Garden, as one of the top 50 garden designers in the UK.[25]

Pearson was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to horticulture.[26]

Television and radio career[edit]

Pearson has presented and appeared in several TV series on BBC2, Channel 4 and Channel 5. In 1992, he presented his first garden makeover programme, Garden Doctors. A book of the same name later followed the series.[13] He presented Dan Pearson: Routes around the World on Channel 4, a six-part travel and horticultural series by Flashback Productions, in 1997.[27] In 2001, the BBC filmed a 12-part series, A Year At Home Farm, in Northampton, for which Dan had been designing the gardens since 1987.[28] A book later also followed the series. He appears occasionally on BBC's Gardeners' World, and also regularly talks on radio,[6] including appearing on Front Row on BBC Radio 4 about the Royal Academy's 2016 exhibition 'Painting the Garden: Monet to Matisse'.[29]

Writing[edit]

Pearson has written for such newspapers as The Guardian, The Telegraph (during 2003–2006),[20] and The Sunday Times on the subject of landscaping and home gardening. He was the garden columnist for The Observer Magazine from 2006 to 2015.[30] He sits on the editorial board of Gardens Illustrated magazine and also writes for Gardeners' World magazine.[6]

Books[edit]

  • Pearson, Dan (1996). Garden Doctors (A Channel Four book). Boxtree Press Ltd. ISBN 978-0752210292. Co-authored with Steve Bradley[31]
  • Pearson, Dan (27 February 1998). 'The Essential Garden Book'. Conran Octopus Ltd. ISBN 978-1850299196. Co-authored with Sir Terence Conran[32]
  • Pearson, Dan (4 January 2001). The Garden: A Year at Home Farm. Ebury Press. ISBN 978-0091870324.[33]
  • Pearson, Dan (3 October 2011) [First published 28 September 2009 (as hardback)]. Spirit: Garden Inspiration. FUEL. ISBN 978-0956356291. Introduction by Beth Chatto[34]
  • Pearson, Dan (7 March 2011). Home Ground: Sanctuary in the City. Conran Octopus. ISBN 978-1840915372.[35]
  • Pearson, Dan (4 May 2017). Natural Selection: A Year in the Garden. Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-1783351176.[36]
  • with Midori Shintani Tokachi Millennium Forest: Pioneering a New Way of Gardening with Nature (Filbert Press, 2021)

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e Kellaway, Kate (12 May 2013). "Dan Pearson: the wild gardener". www.theguardian.com. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  2. ^ a b c d "Dan Pearson". www.rhs.org.uk. Archived from the original on 23 September 2013. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  3. ^ Pearson, Dan (10 September 2006). "Splendour in the grass". The Guardian.com. Retrieved 11 December 2013.
  4. ^ "RHS School of Horticulture success stories - Dan Pearson / RHS Gardening". www.rhs.org.uk. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
  5. ^ a b Bedell, Geraldine (28 May 2006). "Heaven in Peckham". The Observer. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
  6. ^ a b c d e "Dan Pearson". www.designindaba.com. 12 May 2013. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  7. ^ a b c Chia, Marella Caracciolo (12 March 2020). "A Garden Grows in Somerset". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  8. ^ "Pearsonlloyd". www.linkedin.com. February 2013. Retrieved 10 October 2013.
  9. ^ PearsonLloyd. "PearsonLloyd". PearsonLloyd. Retrieved 9 January 2014.
  10. ^ "Dan Pearson: Putting down new roots". www.theguardian.com. 14 November 2010. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  11. ^ https://adamkhan.co.uk/projects/hillside-gardens/2010 [dead link]
  12. ^ "Designers". www.hgs.co.jp. Archived from the original on 20 September 2013. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  13. ^ a b c d "Current Exhibition - Green Fuse:The Work of Dan Peasron". Garden Museum. Archived from the original on 27 September 2013. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  14. ^ Foster, Clare (15 February 2019). "At the gardens of Torrecchia Vecchia designer Dan Pearson has spent 20 years cultivating a romantic arcadia". House & Garden. Archived from the original on 19 March 2023.
  15. ^ "Designed in Britain, Built in Japan". BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  16. ^ Pearson, Dan (11 May 2008). "Tree of life". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  17. ^ Dusoir, Rory (10 March 2020). "The Garden Museum's Dan Pearson courtyard garden". Gardens Illustrated. Photographs by Nemeth, Eva. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  18. ^ Nichols, Clive. "PEARSON". Clive Nichols Photography. Archived from the original on 9 January 2014. Retrieved 10 October 2013.
  19. ^ Leapman, Michael (16 February 1997). "It's time you hit the roof". The Independent. Retrieved 10 October 2013.
  20. ^ a b "Nature always has the last laugh". www.telegraph.co.uk. 22 May 2004. Retrieved 10 October 2013.
  21. ^ Cumming, Ed (17 May 2015). "'The day I uprooted Chatsworth and took it to Chelsea': Dan Pearson". The Observer. theguardian.com. Retrieved 19 May 2015.
  22. ^ Hyslop, Leah (19 May 2015). "Chelsea Flower Show 2015: the winners in full". telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 19 May 2015.
  23. ^ Prynn, Jonathan (24 July 2013). "Roman Abramovich hires celebrity gardener Dan Pearson". www.standard.co.uk. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  24. ^ "Garden Media Guild Awards". www.danpearsonstudio.com. 29 November 2011. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  25. ^ "House & Garden's Top 50 Garden Designers". House & Garden. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  26. ^ "No. 63571". The London Gazette (Supplement). 1 January 2022. p. N14.
  27. ^ "Roman Abramovich hires celebrity gardener Dan Pearson". bfi.org.uk. Archived from the original on 20 September 2013. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  28. ^ Delingpole, James (17 March 2001). "Has the BBC totally lost the plot?". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 15 June 2018.
  29. ^ "BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Ian McKellen, Monet's garden, Louis de Bernieres". BBC. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  30. ^ Pearson, Dan (5 September 2015). "Pastures new: Dan Pearson's journey from city to farm". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  31. ^ Garden Doctors (A Channel Four book): Amazon.co.uk: Dan Pearson, Steve Bradley: Books. ASIN 0752210297.
  32. ^ The Essential Garden Book: The Comprehensive Source Book of Garden Design: Amazon.co.uk: Terence Conran, Dan Pearson: Books. ASIN 1850299196.
  33. ^ The Garden: A Year at Home Farm: Amazon.co.uk: Dan Pearson: Books. ASIN 0091870321.
  34. ^ Spirit: Garden Inspiration: Amazon.co.uk: Dan Pearson, Beth Chatto: Books. ASIN 095635629X.
  35. ^ Home Ground: Sanctuary in the City: Amazon.co.uk: Dan Pearson: Books. ASIN 1840915374.
  36. ^ Natural Selection: A Year in the Garden : Amazon.co.uk: Dan Pearson: Books. ASIN 1783351179.

External links[edit]

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