Desert Island Discs Revisited

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BBC Radio 4 Extra

Factual: Life Stories

Selected castaway gems from the BBC Desert Island Discs archive.

Desert Island Discs Revisited: Gardeners: Dan Pearson

Dan Pearson

Gardeners

Desert Island Discs

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Desert Island Discs Revisited, Gardeners, Dan Pearson

Garden designer Dan Pearson shares his castaway choices with Kirsty Young.

From Fela Kuti to Monteverdi. Garden designer Dan Pearson shares his castaway choices with Kirsty Young. From February 2015.

Kirsty Young's guest is the garden designer, Dan Pearson.

His style is governed by a desire to create a sense of place and he is drawn to wild plants and gardens. Aged just five he discovered this passion, while building roof gardens for his collection of trolls and spent the summer watching the plant and animal life in a pond created by his father.

He gave up A' levels in favour of apprenticeships at RHS Wisley and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and then spent several years working abroad, studying plants in their natural environment. His first large-scale project was creating a garden for Frances Mossman, a colleague of his mother's, who asked him to design the garden at her Northamptonshire plot. He won more clients through word of mouth and set up his own garden design company in the late 1980s. His work has since taken him all over the world and he has designed five award-winning gardens for the Chelsea Flower Show. Amongst his current projects he is creating a design for London's proposed Garden Bridge.

DISC ONE: Marvin Gaye - Got to Give it Up  
DISC TWO: Fela Kuti - Water No Get Enemy 
DISC THREE: Kate Bush - Under The Ivy
DISC FOUR: Jeff Buckley - Benjamin Britten's Corpus Christi Carol 
DISC FIVE: David Bowie - Wild Is The Wind 
DISC SIX: Nick Drake - River Man 
DISC SEVEN: Antica Di Padova, Jordi Savall and Coro Del Centro Musica, conducted by Livio Picotti - Claudio Monteverdi’s Vespro Della Beata Vergine: Gloria Patri 
DISC EIGHT: Grace Jones - Walking in the Rain  

BOOK CHOICE: An encyclopaedia of the local plants  
LUXURY CHOICE: The contents of his potting shed  
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Claudio Monteverdi’s Vespro Della Beata Vergine: Gloria Patri

Producer: Cathy Drysdale

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in February 2015.

Desert Island Discs Revisited: Gardeners

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Gardening castaways share their desert island choices.

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