Dan Pearson Review

 

Dan Pearson: Hillside, Somerset.

This week, I will be looking at a Dan Pearson project. I have long since admired the work of Dan Pearson and his studio and their focus on planting. Unlike the other practices and designers I have reviewed, Dan Pearson takes a planting and soft landscaping centric approach to landscape design. His work, therefore, engages with and inspires my horticultural background. I draw a lot of inspiration from his planting schemes and palettes. 

The project I have chosen is 'Hillside', in Somerset. I have selected this project due to its location in Somerset (where I live) and also my familiarity with the project - I have encountered it before, perhaps in a Gardens Illustrated magazine, perhaps elsewhere.

His planting style, in this project, reflects the new perennial movement and draws off naturalistic perennial planting principles, which I feel strongly align with those set out in Nigel Dunnett's book 'Naturalistic Planting Design' (2019). The overall texture and colour palette that is created by this mass planting scheme, from a distance, is extremely effective. Whilst it is the wider vignette that creates impact, when you view the planting closer up, as shown through various close-up images, such as that shown below, it is apparent that there is a huge level of meticulous detail. Every plant and position appears to be intentional; repeating plants to create coherence, without creating a look of monoculture planting.

 

Another aspect of this scheme that I was thrilled to see was the deviation away from the typical culprits of the perennial movement planting. Whilst the A-team have been heavily deployed: verbena, echinops, echinacea, salvia (...) which, don't get me wrong, are frequently used for a reason and are included within my favourite palettes, the scheme includes some more unusual plants. The lilium pardalinum, pictured below, is a beautiful, not widely-used plant, that has a more unusual, interesting form. I think that it is important to include a range of different plants, including those more peculiar, which are inevitably going to draw the user into the space and invite pause, curiosity and wonder. 

 

Project found at: https://www.danpearsonstudio.com/hillside/

Dunnett, N. (2019) 'Naturalistic Planting Design: the Essential Guide'. Filbert Press: London.