Dan Pearson

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

Early life Pearson was brought up in an Arts and Crafts house on the Hampshire–Sussex border. His father is a painter who taught fine art at Portsmouth Polytechnic

Pearson was employed at a weekend gardening job for Mrs. Pumphrey at Greatham Mill Gardens, Hampshire, 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. 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. Pearson also undertook student scholarships studying wildflower communities in the Picos de Europa, Spain, and in the Himalayas.

When he was 25 he was named house garden designer at the Conran Shop on London's Fulham Road. Pearson set up his garden design business in 1987.

In 2010 Pearson and Huw Morgan restored a late 18th-century house (a 1,500-square-foot two-storey buff-coloured stone building with small windows and two chimneys on a red-tiled roof, called Hillside. 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 Since 2002 he has designed gardens and has given lectures around the world, including in the UK, Italy, US and Japan. He has designed gardens for Jonathan Ive, Paul Smith, Torrecchia Vecchia for Carlo Caracciolo (the late owner of the Italian newspaper l'Espresso), and his colleague on The Guardian newspaper, Nigel Slater (this garden was a joint effort with Monty Don). Another project is Maggie's Centre in Charing Cross, London. In 2020, he designed a new courtyard garden for the Garden Museum in London.

Pearson has curated six show gardens at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 1996 (with an outstanding roof garden), and 2004 (for Merrill Lynch). In May 2015, he returned to Chelsea Flower Show with the "Laurent-Perrier Chatsworth Garden", inspired by the Chatsworth estate in Derbyshire. It won a gold medal and "Best in Show".

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.

Television and radio Pearson has presented and appeared in several TV series on BBC Two, 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. 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. A book later also followed the series. He appears occasionally on BBC's Gardeners' World, and also regularly talks on radio,

Writing Pearson has written for The Guardian, The Telegraph (during 2003–2006) He sits on the editorial board of Gardens Illustrated magazine and also writes for Gardeners' World magazine. Co-authored with Sir Terence Conran

Introduction by Beth Chatto

with Midori Shintani Tokachi Millennium Forest: Pioneering a New Way of Gardening with Nature (Filbert Press, 2021)

Honours

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.

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.

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