Jamie Durie

Jamie Durie
Jamie Durie in September 2012
Born	(1970-06-03) 3 June 1970 Manly, New South Wales, Australia
Residence	Sydney
Occupation	Landscaper, horticulturalist, television presenter
Children	Taylor (daughter)
Website	jamiedurie.com

Jamie Paul Durie OAM (born 3 June 1970) is an Australian-born international horticulturalist and landscape designer. He is founder and Director of Durie Design, a television host and producer, the author of nine best-selling books, an environmentalist and a humanitarian.

Durie has been the television host of the Seven Network's The Outdoor Room and the US PBS series The Victory Garden.

Early life

Durie was born in Manly, an oceanside suburb in Sydney, to a Sri Lankan mother and Australian father. He spent most of his early childhood in the mining town of Tom Price in north Western Australia. Later in the early 1980's he lived on the Gold Coast going to Benowa State High School.^[1] Jamie liked to surf the beaches at every possible chance. He would work with his father landscaping on the weekends during the Gold Coast building boom. During the late 1980s he began working at the night club Jamison Street in Sydney with the male review boys. A former model, Durie performed and part owned the international cabaret group Manpower Australia in the early 1990s with Billy Cross and Ray Anthony. After a performance on the US Phil Donahue Show Manpower Australia had incredible success both home and abroad. It was during his tours with Manpower, and his creative roles within the production, that Durie began to develop his interest in garden design and architecture. He then returned to study design and horticulture in Sydney for four years at the age of 26. Durie has received 33 International Design Awards since.

Television career

Durie has hosted and featured in over 35 prime-time lifestyle shows and appeared on television shows around the world. The top-rating television shows he has hosted or featured in include The Outdoor Room, Australia's Best Backyards, The Block, Backyard Blitz, Torvil and Dean's Dancing on Ice, Disney on Ice, Cirque Du Soleil Specials, and White Room Challenge.

He has received seven Australian TV Logie awards including the Logie award for Most Popular New Male Talent and six consecutive Logie awards for hosting the Most Popular Australian Lifestyle Program for Backyard Blitz.

Durie appeared regularly on The Oprah Winfrey Show following his first appearance in November 2006. Durie appeared on a number of Winfrey's shows during his five-year contract to Harpo and publicly gives credit to Oprah for his USA career.

In the US, Durie's The Outdoor Room on HGTV has had four seasons. He has hosted nine independent shows on HGTV including HGTV Showdown, HGTV Dream Home, HGTV Green Home, The Rose Parade and hosts America's longest running gardening program on PBS, The Victory Garden. Durie has appeared in other programs in Australia and the USA including Dancing with the Stars, 60 Minutes, Celebrity Millionaire, The Price is Right, Better Homes and Gardens, Hard Copy, Entertainment Tonight, E news, NBC Today Show, Donahue, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and was host and judge on the US series Top Design in Australia.

Books and online publishing

Durie is the author of nine best-selling books: (in order of release) Patio—Garden Design and Inspiration, The Outdoor Room, Outside, The Source Book (Editions 1 and 2), Outdoor Kids, Inspired, Jamie Durie's The Outdoor Room and 100 Gardens. Durie and his team produce and publish jamiedurie.com, jamieduriedesign.com and in January 2012 Durie released his own iPhone app, Garden Design With Jamie Durie. He is founder and Editorial Director of The Outdoor Room magazine.

Landscape design

After completing four years of study in horticulture and design, Durie founded the landscape design company Patio Landscape Architecture and Design in 1998. Patio was renamed Durie Design in 2010.

Durie has received 34 design awards. He has been invited to exhibit and compete at international garden shows and won gold medals in Australia, Singapore, Japan, New Zealand and the Chelsea Flower Show in the UK. He continues to focus on large-scale resort and hotel designs globally with designs in Australia, the US, Canada, Spain, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Dubai, Bahrain, Hong Kong and the Caribbean. His latest large scale resort project involved designing and rejuvenating the landscape, furniture, sculpture and gardens at Hayman Island and its private estates on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, after they were devastated by tropical cyclones Anthony and Yasi.

Furniture and product design

In 2003, Durie designed and launched a range of outdoor furniture and gardening products under the brand name Patio by Jamie Durie. The range includes furniture, décor, gardening tools, lighting, textiles, BBQs, ornaments and accessories. All the timber products in the range are environmentally responsible FSC certified timber.

Durie designed the Jamie Durie Signature range of products in collaboration with other artists and designers, including a range of paints with Porters Paints, textiles with Cloth, Durie Design outdoor furniture range with David Knott, a studio design with Modern-Shed and a range of rugs with the Rug Collection.

Environment and charity

Durie is an advocate for environmental conservation. He trained with former US Vice-President Al Gore as a Climate Change Presenter (now named Climate Reality), launched Clean up the World Day with the UN in New York, and is an Ambassador for Greenpeace, Australian Conservation Foundation, Planet Ark and National Tree Day. He also hosted the Australian Conservation Foundation's Spirituality and Sustainability Forum with the Dalai Lama, and is an ambassador and former board member of the Royal Botanic Gardens Foundation, Sydney. Durie is an ambassador for the Forest Stewardship Council and Earth Hour.

Humanitarian work

Durie has donated his time and resources to several charities, including Plan International, the Children's Cancer Institute, FSHD, Sydney Children's Hospital and the Children's Hospital at Westmead, the Variety Club, Rotary, the Children First Foundation, and Westmead Millennium Institute. He was executive producer and host of Jamie's Journey – Hope for Uganda's Children and Jamie's Journey with the Children of India, both produced in conjunction with Plan International to raise awareness of HIV Aids in Uganda and highlight the challenges and successes of Plan's early childhood care programs in India.

Personal

Durie's parents, Ron "Dave" and Joy (who was born in Sri Lanka), divorced when he was aged 10. He and his brother Chris moved to the Gold Coast, Queensland with their mother. Durie has a daughter, Taylor (born 1997), from a relationship with Michelle Gennock. He has since been engaged to Terasa Livingstone and Siobhan Way.

Awards

References

External links

• Jamie Durie's official site
• Durie Design website
• Jamie Durie's Facebook Page
• Jamie Durie's Twitter Page