Nigel Dunnett is Professor of Planting Design and Urban Horticulture in the Department of Landscape at the University of Sheffield and is one of the world’s leading voices on innovative approaches planting design. He is a pioneer of the new ecological and sustainable approaches to gardens, landscapes, and public spaces. His work revolves around the integration of ecology and horticulture to achieve low-input but high-impact landscapes that are dynamic, diverse, and tuned to nature.
Nigel’s work is based on decades of detailed experimental work, delivering a wide range of innovative approaches to achieving transformational and multifunctional urban greening. His work has had widespread application in practice: he works as a designer and consultant and regularly collaborates with a wide range of other professions, and his work has been widely applied in the UK and abroad. Nigel is a former Garden Club of America International Fellow. Nigel was the first winner of the Landscape Institute Award for Planting Design, Public Horticulture and Strategic Ecology in 2018 and won the Landscape Institute Fellows Award for Most Outstanding Project 2018 (both for The Barbican Podium landscape). In 2020 Nigel was made an Honorary Fellow of the Landscape Institute. Nigel’s 2019 book ‘Naturalistic Planting Design: The Essential Guide’ (Filbert Press) is a market leader in the field and won ‘European Garden Book of the Year, 2021. Nigel’s book with colleague James Hitchmough ‘The Dynamic Landscape: ecology, design and management of urban naturalistic planting’ (2003, new edition 2021) is a classic text. Nigel founded the company ‘Pictorial Meadows’ which is now the UK market leader in ‘Designed Meadows’.
In December 2022 Nigel was named as one of the top three most influential people in the UK landscape Industry. Nigel is a gold-medal winner at the Chelsea Flower Show, and has designed 5 main avenue Chelsea Flower Show gardens between 2010 and 2020, including the invited Royal Horticultural Society garden in 2017. Projects include: Tower of London Superbloom 2022; The Barbican, Beech Gardens and High Walk (Phase 1 2013, Phase 2 commencing 2022-2024); Grey to Green, Sheffield (2015-2020); Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (co-principal planting design consultant 2008 – 2014 and ongoing); Grosvenor Square, London (2020-ongoing); Battersea Power Station (2022); Diamond Garden, Buckingham Palace 2013; Bergamo Green Square (2021); Hospitalfield Walled Garden, Arbroath (2020).
A primary objective of Nigel’s work has been to move the consideration of planting design and landscape horticulture from a largely cosmetic, decorative and functional role, to one that is also central to the discussion of how to address the major problems of climate change and a sustainable future. And, while ecological ideas in landscape design have often been applied at the larger scale, his focus is at both the large scale and at the smaller scale: gardens, urban parks, on and around buildings, and in high-density built development, applying ecological concepts within horticulture, landscape architecture and garden design. Specifically, this work has included bold and dramatic naturalistic planting design; ‘modern meadows’; Water-Sensitive Urban Design and SuDS applications; biodiversity-enhancing design; and green roofs and roof gardens.Together with Professor James Hitchmough, Nigel has established a body of research and practice relating to the use of ‘designed plant communities’ in a wide range of urban contexts. The approach, typified by workable, sustainable solutions for public space, with high public appeal, and rich in biodiversity, has come to be known as ‘The Sheffield School’ of planting design. The emphasis is on simple maintenance, and a careful consideration of the various layers within a planting, and successional flowering of a planting over a long period. The key element is an understanding of the ‘horticultural ecology’ of designed plantings, and working with ‘plant communities’ that are suited to site conditions, and which mimic the processes in ‘natural’ vegetation.
