# David Wheeler (gardener and writer)

David Wheeler (1945) is a British gardener, writer and journalist. He founded the literary gardening quarterly Hortus in 1987 and continues as its editor. In 2009 the Royal Horticultural Society awarded him their Gold Veitch Memorial Medal.

## Life and career

Wheeler was born in the Cotswolds and lived there until the age of 11, when the family moved to his mother's home town on the Hampshire coast. With an early interest in plants and gardens, he bought Amateur Gardening and Popular Gardening, "concealing them the best I could - boys in the late Fifties and swinging Sixties didn't buy gardening magazines," he told the Oldie.
His wage-earning jobs included a variety works in the Merchant Navy (as a runaway teenager), and with a big-selling local newspaper, the Observer, the Spectator, the RSPCA and freelance jobbing gardener. In 1987, Wheeler founded the gardening quarterly Hortus without any public subsidy or support. Marking its 25 years in 2012, the Washington Post wrote, "Hortus is the size of a slim paperback but printed on heavy, ivory colored stock and illustrated with line drawings and wood engravings... It produces tactile and aesthetic pleasures once taken for granted and now made acute by their rarity. Wheeler has a motto that Hortus 'is for gardeners who read and readers who garden'." With more than 2,000 subscribers, it has been listed by The Telegraph as one of the best gardening magazines to read.
In 1993, Wheeler founded the quarterly Convivium: The Journal of Good Eating (dedicated to the memory of his friend the food writer Elizabeth David CBE), sharing the same production values as Hortus. It ran for just two years – all eight issues now being highly sought-after collectors' items.
Wheeler and his partner, Simon Dorrell, moved to Bryan's Ground, an Arts and Crafts house near Presteigne, Powys, where they created an extensive garden featuring yew and box topiary, formal parterres, canals, wisteria-garlanded terraces and several buildings and follies created by Simon. It has been described as one of the 10 best secret gardens in Britain by Country Life. The Telegraph described it as 'an Edwardian idyll,' while the BBC Gardens Illustrated called it an "idyllic, quintessentially English garden".
In his Who's Who entry David claims to have had no education. Under hobbies, he wrote "Chasing the ghosts of Ottoman gardeners", reflecting his interest in and many visits to the parks and gardens of Istanbul and along the Bosphorus.
In 2009 the Royal Horticultural Society awarded him their coveted Gold Veitch Memorial Medal in recognition of services given in the advancement of science and practice of horticulture.
Wheeler contributes frequently to several other British and foreign newspapers and periodicals. He now lives and gardens near the sea in Carmarthenshire and takes a special interest in hydrangeas, Iris sibirica, Japanese maples, auriculas and clematis.

## Publications

* By Pen & by Spade: An Anthology of Garden Writing from Hortus, published by Summit Books, 1990
* The Generous Garden: A Second Anthology of Garden Writing from Hortus, published by A. Sutton, 1991
* Panoramas of English Gardens, published by Little, Brown, 1991
* Over the Hills from Broadway: Images of Cotswold Gardens, illustrated by Simon Dorrell, published by Alan Sutton, 1991
* The Penguin Book of Garden Writing, published by Viking, 1996
* Glyndebourne: A Garden for All Seasons, illustrated by Simon Dorrell, published by Bryansground Press, 2000
* Hortus Revisited: A Twenty-first Birthday Anthology, published by Frances Lincoln, 2008