Garden designer
Wisley Trainee, Certificate Course 1981–1983
Dan was born into an artistic family. His father was a painter and his mother taught fashion and textiles, and although not fanatical gardeners, it was definitely something that was a part of their lives. When Dan was about eight to 10 years old, the family moved to a wonderful property, which although forgotten for many years, became Dan’s inspiration for his future career.
There were not many children in his home area, but two passionate elderly plantswomen lived nearby who Dan spent most of his spare time with, ending up with a weekend gardening job for one of the ladies. By the time he reached his early teens he was totally committed to gardening.
Getting no encouragement from school, Dan decided against going to Art College, and dropped out of his A levels (backed by his parents) to be able to go to Wisley. At the time, Wisley wouldn’t accept anyone with A levels as entrants had to be between 16 and 18 years old and it wasn’t particularly set up for academic rigour. At the interview, Dan produced a photograph album of the garden he’d been building with his parents and produced planting plans for all the borders, stunning ‘the Education woman’ who didn’t believe he’d done it all himself.
Needless to say, Dan was accepted and started with nine others in September 1981. The course itself was like an apprenticeship - very, very practical and it suited Dan down to the ground. They worked hard but there was a wealth of information if you wanted it and they all worked together to create a climate of excellence.
Aged 17, Dan’s mother introduced him to Frances Mossman, for whom Dan designed a garden while he was still at Wisley. After leaving, he and a colleague then went to build the garden before Dan went to the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh for a year to work on the Rock Garden and the Woodland Garden. After Edinburgh, Dan completed the three-year Kew course and went back to maintaining Frances Mossman’s garden and made other connections with people through Frances. When he finished his education, it was just a matter of carrying on making gardens for these other connections, so he started his own small business and has built it up from there.
Dan has now done five show gardens at RHS Chelsea Flower Show and employs eight people in his well-established garden design business. He feels that being at Wisley has given him an advantage over other garden and landscape designers because of the solid grounding in horticulture he received. Now the choices he makes are well informed – all because he was taught very thoroughly about how to garden.