Bunny Guinness

Peta "Bunny" Guinness (née Ellis; born 16 December 1955)^[1] is a British chartered landscape architect, journalist and radio personality who is a regular panellist on the long-running BBC Radio 4 programme, Gardener's Question Time.^[2] She also writes a weekly column in the Sunday Telegraph. She presented The Great Garden Challenge on Channel 4 in 2005.

Bunny Guinness, 2011

Guinness took a BSc (Hons) in horticulture at Reading University, after which she qualified as a landscape architect at Birmingham Polytechnic (now Birmingham City University). She was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University in 2009.^[3][4]

She exhibits regularly at the Chelsea Flower Show, where she has won six gold medals.^[5] Her core business, Bunny Guinness Landscape Design Limited, is based near Peterborough in the East Midlands of England.^[6]

She was listed in House & Garden magazine in 2021 as one of the top 50 garden designers in the UK.^[7]

Family

Her father was Squadron Leader Peter William Ellis, DFC and her mother Barbara Helen Stockitt (née Austin).^[8] She married Kevin Michael Rundell Guinness in 1976, a member of the Guinness brewing family.^[9][10] Her mother is sister of rose breeder David C.H. Austin,^[11] who named a rose after her.^[12] Her daughter, Unity, has a degree in landscape architecture and works with her.^[13][14]

Bunny is a nickname given by her family; as a baby her dark eyes made her resemble a currant bun.^[15]

Bibliography

• Gardener's Question Time: All Your Gardening Problems Solved (with co-authors John Cushnie, Bob Flowerdew, Pippa Greenwood, Anne Swithinbank, and photographs from The Garden Picture Gallery and others, paperback, 325 pages, Bookmart Limited, 2005, ISBN 1-84509-189-2)
• Family Gardens: How to Create Magical Spaces for All Ages (paperback, 128 pages, David & Charles, 2008, ISBN 978-0715327951)