Born in New Delhi in 1949, Pradip Krishen was educated at Mayo College and St. Stephen's College, and at Balliol College, Oxford. His first job was teaching history at Ramjas College at Delhi University. He joined a small, private firm making science documentaries for TV in 1975 and went on to direct three feature films: Massey Sahib in 1985, In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones in 1989 and Electric Moon in 1991. His films have won significant Indian and international awards. He gave up filmmaking in 1993 and started to teach himself field botany. Krishen began by spending time in the subtropical jungles of Pachmarhi in the Satpura Hills of Madhya Pradesh. He started to identify and photograph Delhi's trees in 1998, extensively exploring the city and its semi-wild fringes. In the course of his work, Krishen led numerous public tree-walks on Sunday mornings and became a keen ecological gardener. Krishen has created "native-plant" gardens in Delhi, western Rajasthan, and Garhwal and has completed a significant rewilding scheme in a habitat of volcanic rock at Rao Jodha Desert Rock Park, next to Mehrangarh fort in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. In 2014, Krishen began work on a new gardening initiative at Abha Mahal in Nagaur Fort, Rajasthan. The following year, he took over as Project Director of the gardens of the Calico Museum in Ahmedabad, and most recently, led a team of horticulturists and landscape architects to restore an extensive set of sand dunes in Jaipur city, Rajasthan. This is slated to open soon as a public park called “Kishan Bagh” (nothing to do with his surname!). 

Krishen's book Trees of Delhi: A Field Guide, published by Dorling Kindersley/Penguin Group in 2006, met with popular and critical acclaim and became a best-seller in India.

Krishen's second book Jungle Trees of Central India, published by Penguin India was released in 2014.