Print this page Design your own Garden

The Inchbald Design your own Garden course takes place one evening a week for 10 weeks. It has been developed for people wish to design their own garden with the help of a professional garden designer whose skills and knowledge will guide you through the design process.

Many of us are intimidated at the thought of embarking on a new garden. You may have moved into a new property, or you may simply wish to change or develop an existing space. You may like to design a friend’s garden or even work together on a project. This garden design short course takes you through the steps of designing your garden.

You will need basic drawing equipment to complete the course but we advise you not to buy any materials before the start of the course, in order to avoid unnecessary expenditure.

Design your own garden – course aims

• To take you through the design process step by step in relation to your own scheme and inspire ideas.
• To develop through discussion and by working on your design a sense of spatial awareness which will help create the skills needed to realise your garden brief.
• To provide the skills needed to select appropriate hard landscaping materials, planting, ornamentation and furnishing.

Design your own garden – course contents

Creating your brief

We start by discussing your requirements, likes and dislikes to produce a visual brief which we can work with throughout this short garden design course to produce a usable garden design.

Taking a survey

When you have established your brief you need to learn the skills necessary to complete an accurate survey which can then be translated into a workable scale drawing. You will carry out a survey and gather photographs of your chosen site as homework and present this to the group.

Site analysis and appraisal

Once the survey is complete we can start to think about what you would like to keep and or remove from the existing site. We will discuss the garden’s good and bad attributes and produce a site analysis and appraisal drawing based upon your survey drawing.

Design process

Armed with your brief, survey and site analysis we can now start to work through the design process. You will investigate basic design principles together with the various ways to start a design. We will explore sources of design inspiration to produce an original garden.

Basic drawing and presentation skills

Throughout the course you will develop basic drawing and presentation skills to enable you to communicate visually. our aim is to produce a workable master plan that will convey your design thoughts to a contractor.

Hard and soft landscape selection

As we begin to finalise your design you will start to look at what hard landscaping would be appropriate to your design and where to source them. We will look a plant selection to form plant associations which enhance your garden.

Course teaching methods

This garden design course is taught using lecture, studio, group work and workshops. Places are strictly limited to 8 students to ensure you have a close working relationship with teaching staff. You are supported in studio at a ratio of around 8:1.

In order to benefit fully from this part-time evening garden design course, you should be prepared to do about four hours of homework per week.

To join this garden design course, please contact the Course Administrator for an application form.