Casual Gardener: Grand garden designs at Serc’s Holywood Campus
South Jap Regional Higher education is providing a opportunity to hone your back garden layout capabilities…
MOST gardeners are yard designers, no matter whether they realise it or not. Picking out in which to place a particular container or selecting which two crops function nicely jointly is aspect of a course of action that seeks to maximise the impression of a area on the eye. When taken to extremes by the likes of Functionality Brown, the 18th century landscaper, backyard garden style can entail acres of land, massive quantities of labour and thousands of vegetation. But superior style and design can be just as vital in a smaller space, the place planting and really hard landscaping can jointly build a glance and ambiance that transcends its locale. This in many approaches encapsulates the problem to the yard designer, whether its developing a wild landscape at Chelsea or bringing tropical exotica to an city back again property.
If you are interested in creating or perfecting your backyard garden design and style competencies and do not are living way too much from South Eastern Regional College’s Holywood Campus, the school is launching what it phrases “the only system of its type” in the north – an OCN amount 2 certification in backyard garden design and style. Serc’s affiliate horticulture lecturer Joanna Loane suggests the program is “appropriate for aspiring specialist backyard designers for landscapers wishing to upskill and get a qualification, or for people who want to gain the expertise to be capable to style their possess back garden”.
With no prior gardening know-how needed, college students will be schooled in surveying backyard web-sites, learn to attract to scale, and include the rules of garden design and style and tricky landscaping. They will also produce their plant knowledge, studying about plant assortment and the use of color and texture, while also attaining the opportunity to examine the get the job done of influential backyard designers, both equally historic and present-day.
“Back garden Design and style is a common and increasing marketplace with elements this kind of as the variations in way of living in the course of the Covid lockdowns primary individuals to enjoy their gardens in a total new way,” claims Joanna.
“Below at Serc we have been delivering thriving yard style and design classes given that 2003, setting up on this knowledge, this new class has been produced with OCN NI to enable fulfil this escalating fascination.”
Gear-wise, Joanna says backyard style and design practitioners “need only a essential volume of drawing machines”.
She also insists that it will accommodate gardeners of all preferences: “Irrespective of whether your preference is cleanse very simple lines of ultra-modern gardens, or the informality of wildlife gardens, college students will have the prospect to develop their design capabilities in just their individual space of fascination.”
If you fancy yourself as the up coming Bunny Guinness (God forbid) or Diarmuid Gavin (Yikes) and aspiration of developing a haven for relaxation or some thing that’ll fulfill the demands of a family members, Serc’s class could be suitable up your gravel and crimson brick backyard path.
The course runs for three several hours on a Tuesday early morning each individual 7 days at the Holywood Campus. Graduates will have the capabilities to build structure solutions and layouts to suit any short, from a small backyard which ought to residence refuse bins or a gas tank, right via to bigger landscapes.
You can find an alternative to continue on into a second calendar year to realize an OCN Level 2 Extended Diploma in backyard garden style (3 hrs on a Tuesday afternoon), which requires learning yard kinds, plant and soil science and plant treatment. Ultimately, learners could progress to the RHS Level 2 Plant Development and Improvement also available at SERC.
The study course expenses £277 for the yr, with a 25 per cent concession for individuals aged over 60 and a further concession for these who are suitable in receipt of positive aspects.