Dan Pearson – Delos: Two Years On

In 2018 Troy asked Dan if he could provide more concrete help in re-imagining Delos. This area of the garden had originally been envisaged by Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West as an homage to the Greek island of that name which they had fallen in love with while on holiday in 1935. However, due to the garden’s north-facing aspect and heavy Wealden clay soil it had rapidly became a shady woodland garden quite at odds with the couple’s sun-baked vision.

Working closely with Sissinghurst’s curatorial and gardening teams, Dan and his design team gained a deeper understanding of the original intentions behind the garden, and proposed design solutions to make the site work including raked terracing to harvest as much sunshine as possible and a free draining soil mix to give the planting the conditions it would require to thrive.

Work on remaking the Delos garden started in spring 2019 and took a year to complete. In this lecture Dan will discuss methods he implemented along with reflecting on how Delos has developed and how it will continue to progress.