Rick Darke, President of RICK DARKE LLC, is a widely published author, photographer, lecturer and consultant focused on regional landscape design, planning, conservation, and enhancement. Blending art, ecology, and cultural geography, Darke is dedicated to the design and stewardship of the livable landscape. (click here for PDF). He has studied and photographed North American plants in their habitats for over 30 years, and this work is reflected in his articles and books including The American Woodland Garden, which has received the American Horticultural Society's Book Award, the Garden Writers Association Golden Globe Award for book photography, and the National Arbor Day Foundation's Certificate of Merit. A broadly knowledgeable horticulturist, Darke has traveled extensively in both hemispheres, exploring diverse ecologies and cultural landscapes in search of ideas to enrich the global garden. He is an internationally recognized authority on the use of grasses in designed and managed landscapes and his latest book, The Encyclopedia of Grasses for Livable Landscapes is the world's most complete individual reference on this topic. He is available for concept and design consulting on public and private landscapes.

Darke's own garden, made with Melinda Zoehrer, his wife and co-horticulturist, comprises 1.5 acres in the rolling piedmont of Landenberg, Pennsylvania, and features locally native and adapted plants and regional relics. The garden has been published in Horticulture Magazine, Delaware Today magazine, in Ken Druse's award-winning books The Collector's Garden (1996) and Ken Druse: A Passion for Gardening (2003, co-authored with Adam Levine), in Fine Gardening Magazine, December 1998, The American Gardener , May-June 1999, in the July-August 1999 issue of HGTV Ideas: The Magazine of Home and Garden Television , and in Peg Streep's Spiritual Gardening: Creating Sacred Space Outdoors. The garden was featured in the September 2000 issue of The Garden (The Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society) and most recently in a May 2007 New York Times article by Anne Raver. Darke's work with deciduous forest ecology, stewardship, and landscape design was featured on Ketzel Levine's National Public Radio program. Click here for the NPR link including full audio.

After initial forays into mechanical engineering, art, cultural geography and anthropology, Darke graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Plant Science from the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware in 1977. He subsequently completed graduate coursework in plant taxonomy, botanic garden management, and public policy. When not gardening, Darke maintains his machine interests by restoring and writing about vintage motorcycles and their history in Japan.

Darke served on the staff of Longwood Gardens, Kennett Square, Pennsylvania for 20 years, beginning in 1977 as Taxonomic Assistant.  As Curator of Plants from 1986-1997, Darke played a major role in developing the Gardens' indoor and outdoor displays, and was directly responsible for the identification and data management of the nearly 10,000 different plants comprising Longwoods' grounds and conservatory collections. His work with international plant exploration and introduction has taken him to Japan, South Africa, England, Germany, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Costa Rica, and the Canary Islands.

Darke has served as a horticultural consultant for public landscapes and gardens including the Adkins Arboretum (for the Eastern Shoreway), Delaware Greenways (for the Brandywine Valley Scenic Byway ), the Chicago Botanic Garden, the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, the Rio Grande Botanic Garden, Mt. Cuba Inc., and the City of Baltimore's Druid Hill Conservatory. Current clients and projects include Montgomery Farm, a 500-acre conservation development in Allen, Texas that is employing a unique team to create an essentially livable landscape; .... ...the Delaware Center for Horticulture and the Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT), for which he is a team member of the Enhancing Delaware Highways project.  This cooperative research project is conserving and enhancing the beauty and environmental diversity of Delaware's regional landscape through inspired management of roadside rights-of-way. Enhancing Delaware Highways was featured in the August 2003 People Places and Plants magazine article "Roadside Attraction" The DelDOT Concept and Planning Manual: Enhancing Delaware Highways is now available as a pdf download through the Delaware Department of Transportation website (click here for link). ...and in 2006 Darke worked with W. Gary Smith on the design of the Woodland Entrance Corridor for the Botanic Garden of Western Pennsylvania. Darke and Smith previously worked together on the design of Peirce's Woods at Longwood Gardens.

Darke's longstanding studies of the interrelation of technology and landscape led him to join designer Paul van Meter and co-team member Tim Mountz in the submission of a design entry for The High Line, a long-derelict elevated rail line along New York City's West Side that promises to become one of 21st Century North America's most imaginative public spaces. The team entry, one of over 700 submitted by participants from Tokyo to Berlin, was a Jury Selection. Click here to see some of Rick Darke's images of The High Line.

Darke lectures internationally on landscape design, planning, conservation and ethics. Special areas of focus include ecological and cultural landscapes of North America, deciduous woodland ecology and garden design, grasses for sustainable global gardens, Arts & Crafts period gardens, and roadside/ruderal landscapes. On the broad topic of livable landscapes Rick has addressed audiences in North America, Canada, England, Ireland, Japan, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Chile.

Beginning with fall semester 2006 and continuing in 2007, Darke has worked with University of Delaware professor Susan Barton on the format and web design for PLSC100 Plants and Human Culture, a progressive new UD course exploring the evolving relationships between plants and an international variety of human cultures. The class is very 'green', using no wasted paper. Although classes and discussions take place in a 'bricks and mortar' classroom, readings, assignments, projects and quizzes are all handled digitally using the University of Delaware's 'MyCourses' interface.

Darke is an active free-lance writer and photographer. His collection of digital photos and 35mm transparencies includes over 150,000 images of plants, gardens, and diverse landscapes around the world. His photographs have been published in numerous books, magazines, newspapers and nursery catalogs. Click here to see Darke's June 2005, on Amsonia, in the Royal Horticultural Society's journal The Plantsman.

Darke has been studying ornamental grasses for over 25 years, and has had articles on this topic published in numerous magazines and journals including Garden Design, National Gardening, Fine Gardening, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Record, and Arnoldia , the magazine of the Arnold Arboretum. He authored the booklet Ornamental Grasses at Longwood Gardens and was responsible for the design and plant selection of the ornamental grass display in Longwood's Idea Garden. His first book, For Your Garden: Ornamental Grasses was published in April 1994. Darke served as Consulting Editor for the Royal Horticultural Society's Manual of Grasses, published in December 1994. His book, The Color Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses , including over 500 color photographs by the author, was published in the U.S. in March 1999 by Timber Press. His next work on grasses, the Timber Press Pocket Guide to Ornamental Grasses, was published Autumn 2004. His most recent book, The Encyclopedia of Grasses for Livable Landscapes, was published in April 2007 by Timber Press.  With over 1000 photos and more than 130,000 words, it is the most comprehensive encyclopedia of landscape grasses ever published.

Darke's research has investigated period Arts & Crafts Movement philosophies and their importance to contemporary stewardship of cultural landscapes and local ecologies. He has written about Arts & Crafts gardens for Style 1900: The Quarterly Journal of the Arts & Crafts Movement, has lectured from coast to coast on this topic, and has served as design consultant on Arts & Crafts gardens from California to Pennsylvania. His book, In Harmony with Nature: Lessons from the Arts & Crafts Garden was published in hardcover in March 2000 by Friedman-Fairfax of New York and in softcover in March 2001. Darke has presented various perspectives on the topic of Arts & Crafts gardens for institutions and symposia including: the 9th Annual Grove Park Inn Arts & Crafts Conference in Asheville, North Carolina; the Friends of the Gamble House Greene & Greene Symposium in Pasadena, California; Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge, California; the Rose Valley Anniversary Lecture Series at the Hedgerow Theater in Rose Valley, Pennsylvania; the University of Pennsylvania's Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; the Berks County Pennsylvania Horticulture Club; Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales, Florida; the New York Metropolitan Chapter of the Victorian Society in America; the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden in California, the 13th Annual Grove Park Inn Arts & Crafts Conference; and the New York Botanical Garden.  

Darke has been a founding member of the Steering and Program Committees for the Millersville University annual Conference on "Native Plants in the Landscape", co-Chairman of the Native Plant Sale Program Committee for the Delaware Nature Society, Chairman of the AABGA Nomenclature Committee, and is Past President of the Board of Directors of the Delaware Center for Horticulture. He served on the review board for the Chester County Natural Areas Inventory, and on the Public Education Committee of the Citizens Task Force for the Congressionally-sponsored White Clay Watershed Wild & Scenic Rivers Study. He is currently a member of the Delaware Department of Transportation Horticultural and Vegetative Management Advisory Group, the Landscape Advisory Committee of the Whitesbog Preservation Trust, and is a Board Member of Pennsylvania's London Britain Township Land Trust.