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It is no exaggeration to say that John Brookes transformed 20th-century garden design, not only in his native Britain but throughout the world.
He fundamentally changed the way people think about their gardens, always emphasizing the importance of reconciling nature and the character of a landscape with the needs and visions of the people living in it. Over the last 50 years he has designed and taught in the US, Canada, South America, Russia, Japan, Iran, Kashmir, and all over Europe—always consulting the vernacular of an area, its materials and how they are used, as well as its plants.
Here, John Brookes tells his story and reflects on how his thinking about garden design, and design generally, has developed.
John Brookes designed gardens and landscapes all over Britain and Europe, and also in the United States and Canada, South America, South Africa, Australia, Iran, Japan and Russia. He founded schools of design in Japan, Chile and Argentina and, most famously, the Clock House School of Design at Denmans, West Sussex. He was awarded an MBE for garden design and services to horticulture, the Award of Distinction of the American Association of Professional Landscape Designers, the Garden Writers' Association of America Award of Excellence, and countless other international awards including four Chelsea Flower Show Gold Medals. He lived at Denmans until his death in 2018 at the age of eighty-four.
Gwendolyn van Paasschen is a garden designer and writer. Having worked with John Brookes on a major design project in upstate New York, she helped him with his memoir, A Landscape Legacy (Pimpernel, 2018), and is now chair of the John Brookes Denmans Foundation, which is dedicated to perpetuating John Brookes' design legacy and to the preservation of Denmans Garden.
Andrew Duff is a garden designer, Managing Director of the Inchbald School of Design and Vice-Chair of the Society of Garden Designers.