P. Allen Smith

Paul Allen Smith, Jr. (born March 12, 1960) is an American garden designer, author, television host, entrepreneur, and conservationist.

Smith is one of America's most recognized garden and design experts, providing ideas and guidance through multiple media venues.

He has hosted four television series since 1989, most recently P. Allen Smith's A Sense of Place, scheduled to begin airing on public television in October 2026.

Life and work Paul Allen Smith Jr., known professionally as P. Allen Smith, is recognized as one of the country's leading authorities on horticulture and garden design. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, and raised in McMinnville, Tennessee, he is a fourth-generation nurseryman whose family background in southern horticulture shaped his early training. He earned a B.A. in Biology and History from Hendrix College in 1983, then received a Rotary International Scholarship to study garden design and history at the University of Manchester, where he retraced, 200 years to the day, the tour of English country estates taken by Thomas Jefferson and John Adams — an experience that established the design vocabulary underlying his later American commissions.

Returning to Arkansas, Smith entered the family nursery and garden-design business before founding P. Allen Smith & Associates, a Little Rock, AR landscape and garden design-construction firm. His design philosophy, rooted in the classical English tradition of Palladio, Brown, and Repton has made him one of the most sought-after landscape designers in the country.

Smith has also built his national media profile as host and producer of P. Allen Smith's Garden Home, distributed by American Public Television and among PBS's most successful and longest-running lifestyle programs, along with P. Allen Smith's Garden to Table and the syndicated Garden Style. He was a recurring garden and design contributor on NBC's Today Show and Good Morning America, his work has been frequently published in addition to his television work.

The centerpiece of Smith's public profile is Moss Mountain Farm, his 550-acre estate on the Arkansas River near Little Rock, cited as a contemporary example of the Ferme Ornée tradition. The property functions as both a working design laboratory and destination. In 2020, Smith expanded his enterprise into green manufacturing with the acquisition of Extreme Panel Technologies, a structurally insulated panel (SIP) company, extending his design influence into sustainable, energy-efficient construction.

Smith's institutional affiliations reflect standing at the top tier of American horticulture and preservation. He is a Trustee of Winterthur, a former Board Member of the Royal Oak Foundation (the U.S. partner of Britain's National Trust), a Certified Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society, and an Honorary Member of the Garden Club of America, which awarded him its Medal of Honor in 2006. He also serves as Honorary President of the Herb Society of America and is a life member of the Livestock Conservancy, the Rare Breeds Trust (UK), and the Society for the Preservation of Poultry Antiquities.

In 2009, Smith founded the Heritage Poultry Conservancy, an organization dedicated to preserving threatened breeds of domestic poultry, reflecting a broader conservation commitment that runs alongside his design work — including supporting preservation programs at Monticello and Mount Vernon. He is also a TEDx speaker and a frequent presenter at many of the country's most prominent historic homes and garden institutions.

Television Smith began appearing on television in 1989, hosting a weekly gardening segment on Little Rock station KATV's Daybreak program.

Smith's P. Allen Smith's Garden Home series on garden design and outdoor living shares lifestyle trends and stories of people who are making a positive impact in their communities. Some episodes are filmed at Smith's Arkansas Home, Moss Mountain Farm, near Little Rock, Arkansas.

P. Allen Smith's Garden to Table, pairs seasonal growing with cooking. Smith's fourth program, P. Allen Smith's A Sense of Place, is scheduled to begin airing on public television stations in October 2026. Filmed at Smith's Moss Mountain Farm in Arkansas, the series covers regional gardening traditions, seasonal planting, heirloom vegetable varieties, pollinators, and seed saving. Smith also shares popular episodes from his shows on YouTube.

Publications Books Smith has authored seven books.

P. Allen Smith's Garden Home: Creating a Garden for Everyday Living (2003) introduces the twelve principles of design Smith developed at his original Garden Home property in Little Rock. P. Allen Smith's Container Gardens: 60 Container Recipes to Accent Your Garden (2005) presents container planting designs in a recipe-style format with ingredient lists and step-by-step instructions. P. Allen Smith's Colors for the Garden: Creating Compelling Color Themes (2006) applies color theory to garden design and plant selection. P. Allen Smith's Living in the Garden Home: Connecting the Seasons with Containers, Crafts, and Celebrations (2007) connects seasonal living to container gardening, crafts, and entertaining. P. Allen Smith's Bringing the Garden Indoors: Containers, Crafts, and Bouquets for Every Room (2009) offers 65 projects for using garden elements to decorate the home. P. Allen Smith's Seasonal Recipes from the Garden (2010) is a cookbook inspired by the produce grown on his farm and drawn from a family history of cooks. Moss Mountain Farm: A Sense of Place (2026) is a coffee-table volume on the design, inspiration, and purpose behind Smith's Arkansas farm.

Other publications In addition to his books, Smith produced a series of smaller instructional card-deck-and-DVD sets through Hortus, each pairing a set of how-to reference cards with a companion instructional video.

P. Allen Smith's Bulb Garden: Colorful Blooms & Lush Foliage (2010) P. Allen Smith's Rose Garden: Roses for Every Garden (2010) P. Allen Smith's Veggies & Herbs: From Garden to Table (2010)

Personal homes and gardens The Original Garden Home

Located in the historic Quapaw Quarter of Little Rock, Arkansas, the original Garden Home is a 1904 Colonial Revival cottage surrounded by a series of garden rooms designed by Smith. He purchased the house for one United States dollar and relocated it to a vacant lot. , which is located on the banks of the Arkansas River. and it was featured in original programming for eHow Home, a YouTube channel produced by Demand Media and filmed at Moss Mountain Farm as part of YouTube's 2012 original-content initiative. It is now part of the Southern Living design collection.

The property has drawn coverage in national and lifestyle media. In 2010, The New York Times profiled Smith and Moss Mountain Farm in a piece titled "The Martha Stewart of the South." Flower Magazine has also published a tour of the farm's gardens and grounds. Smith’s later television programs were largely filmed on-site. His cookbook was photographed at the Farm, Moss Mountain Farm: A Sense of Place showcases the property through images and text, and the forthcoming PBS series of the same name is also filmed and set there.

Awards and honors Member of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem Medal of Honor, Garden Club of America (2006), the organization's oldest national award, for outstanding service to horticulture Honorary Member, Garden Club of America (since 2007) Arkansas Cultural Enrichment Award, Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival (2009) Mid-America Regional Emmy Award for Lifestyle Program, for A Garden Home Christmas (2020)

Smith's television programs have received numerous additional industry honors. P. Allen Smith's Garden Home won the Taste Award for "Best Green or Organic Program" in 2013, 2014, and 2016, and received four Taste Awards in 2013 alone.