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Helen Dillon (born 1940 in Dunning, Perth and Kinross), is a Scottish and Irish gardener, garden designer and lecturer, and media personality, who operated one of Ireland's most-visited private gardens for 44 years. [1]
Dillon grew up in the small village of Dunning in Perthshire, Scotland, where she gardened from an early age. [2]
Dillon later moved to London, and worked for a time for Amateur Gardening magazine, where she met gardeners and garden designers, and as an antiques dealer. She moved to Dublin when she married fellow antiques dealer Val Dillon. [1]
The Dillons managed one of Ireland's most-visited private gardens on a one-acre site behind a Georgian terraced house on Sandford Road in Ranelagh, an inner southern suburb of Dublin, from 1972 to 2016. [1] The garden was named by one of the UK's leading gardeners, Christopher Lloyd, in his book Other People's Gardens, and is listed in other reference works. However Dillon did comment on the challenges of building up the garden, especially around aging of the soil, and the pests and diseases which tend to develop in older garden environments, including weevils, fungal rust, and persistent weeds.
After the Ranelagh property sold for over 4.5 million euro, and the Dillons moved on in September 2016, they relocated to Seafield Road, Monkstown, where a new garden was announced in 2018, opening for group visits, and with plans for classes. [3]
Dillon has presented The Garden Show, Garden Heaven (which also featured Dermot O'Neill), and Antiques Watch for RTÉ, Ireland's national State broadcaster. [2] She also co-presented Greatest Gardens for the BBC, with Diarmuid Gavin. [4]
Dillon and her garden appeared on television, and the developing new garden was also featured on Gardeners' World, and was mentioned on Radio Ulster's Gardeners Corner, in 2017.
Dillon has designed gardens over more than twenty years, including work on the garden at Kiltinan Castle, Fethard, Co Tipperary, for Andrew Lloyd Webber, for the American Embassy in Dublin, and on Roy and Patty Disney's garden in County Cork. [2]
She has participated in plant-hunting expeditions in New Zealand, parts of South America, Nepal, China, and South Africa. [2]
Dillon has lectured in Ireland, the UK, the USA and Canada, Australia and New Zealand. [2]
Dillon has written a range of books and articles on gardening and garden-related design.
Dillon wrote a gardening column for the Sunday Tribune in the early 1990s. She has also written for The Garden, the magazine of the Royal Horticultural Society.
In 1999, Dillon received a gold Veitch Memorial Medal from the Royal Horticultural Society, and in 2003, a Medal of Honor from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. [2]
She is a Distinguished Counselor to the New York Botanical Garden Board of Trustees. [5]
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The National Botanic Gardens is a botanical garden in Glasnevin, 5 km north-west of Dublin city centre, Ireland. The 19.5 hectares are situated between Glasnevin Cemetery and the River Tolka where it forms part of the river's floodplain.
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity.
Blackrock is a suburb of Dublin, Ireland, 3 km (1.9 mi) northwest of Dún Laoghaire.
Alan Fred Titchmarsh HonFSE is an English gardener, broadcaster, TV presenter, poet, and novelist. After working as a professional gardener and a gardening journalist, he established himself as a media personality through appearances on television gardening programmes. He has developed a diverse writing and broadcasting career.
Ranelagh is an affluent residential area and urban village on the Southside of Dublin, Ireland in the postal district of D06.
Monkstown, historically known as Carrickbrennan, is a suburb in south Dublin, located in Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Ireland. It is on the coast, between Blackrock and Dún Laoghaire.
Diarmuid Gavin is an Irish garden designer and television personality. He has presented gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show on nine occasions from 1995 to 2016, winning a number of medals, including gold in 2011. He has also authored or co-authored at least ten gardening-related books.
Joseph Forsyth Johnson was an English landscape architect and disciple of John Ruskin. He "played a pivotal role in introducing the notion of naturalistic planting."
Frederick William Thomas Burbidge (1847–1905) was a British explorer who collected many rare tropical plants for the famous Veitch Nurseries.
The Victoria Medal of Honour (VMH) is awarded to British horticulturists resident in the United Kingdom whom the Royal Horticultural Society Council considers deserving of special honour by the Society.
(Ernest) Charles Nelson is a botanist who specialises in the heather family, Ericaceae, especially Erica, and whose past research interests included the Proteaceae especially Adenanthos. He is the author or editor of over 24 books and more than 150 research papers. He was honorary editor of Archives of Natural History between 1999 and 2012 and remains closely linked with the journal as one of the Associate Editors, and was honorary editor of Heathers for 23 years until 2017.
Dermot O'Neill was an Irish gardener and editor of Garden Heaven magazine. He appeared on several radio and television programmes for RTÉ and BBC Northern Ireland and contributed regular columns for Irish newspapers and magazines including the RTÉ Guide, The Irish Times, and the Sunday Independent.
Rachel de Thame is an English gardener, television presenter and actress.
Christine Helen Walkden is a British television presenter and gardener, best known for her appearances on gardening programmes and The One Show. She has hosted her own series centred on her home garden in Sawbridgeworth, Christine's Garden, on the BBC.
Charles Moore was an Australian botanist and director of the Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney.
Dún Laoghaire is a suburban coastal town in Dublin in Ireland. It is the administrative centre of the county of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown.
Alice Jacob was an Irish botanical illustrator, lace designer, and design teacher.
Wendy Felicité Walsh was an artist born in Cumbria who lived and worked in Ireland and was a prolific botanical illustrator.
Gerald "Gerry" Daly is an Irish Horticulturist, garden designer and media personality and editor of The Irish Garden magazine. He has featured, over a period of nearly 40 years, on multiple radio and television programmes on RTÉ and BBC Northern Ireland channels, and has contributed, as he still does, regular columns for Irish newspapers and magazines, over more than 30 years, including the Irish Independent, the Sunday Independent and the Farmers Journal.
Sir Frederick William Moore, was President of the Royal Horticultural Society of Ireland, and Keeper of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Dublin in the period 1879-1922.
