Casual Gardener: Grand yard designs at Serc’s Holywood Campus

South Jap Regional College is presenting a opportunity to hone your backyard style abilities…

MOST gardeners are backyard designers, no matter whether they realise it or not. Selecting exactly where to spot a particular container or deciding which two crops function well alongside one another is portion of a method that seeks to maximise the influence of a room on the eye. When taken to extremes by the likes of Capacity Brown, the 18th century landscaper, yard structure can contain acres of land, huge amounts of labour and countless numbers of plants. But great design can be just as important in a modest room, where by planting and tricky landscaping can together develop a look and ambiance that transcends its area. This in a lot of methods encapsulates the problem to the backyard garden designer, irrespective of whether its creating a wild landscape at Chelsea or bringing tropical exotica to an urban again yard.

If you are interested in building or perfecting your garden structure skills and really don’t reside too considerably from South Eastern Regional College’s Holywood Campus, the college is launching what it conditions “the only training course of its sort” in the north – an OCN degree 2 certification in garden layout. Serc’s affiliate horticulture lecturer Joanna Loane suggests the study course is “appropriate for aspiring specialist yard designers for landscapers wishing to upskill and acquire a qualification, or for all those who want to gain the skills to be ready to style and design their individual backyard garden”.

With no prior gardening knowledge vital, pupils will be schooled in surveying garden web-sites, master to attract to scale, and go over the rules of back garden style and design and really hard landscaping. They will also acquire their plant know-how, discovering about plant variety and the use of colour and texture, although also getting the possibility to examine the work of influential garden designers, both of those historical and present-day.

“Garden Design and style is a well known and developing industry with factors these as the variations in way of life in the course of the Covid lockdowns top people to enjoy their gardens in a complete new way,” suggests Joanna.

“Below at Serc we have been offering profitable backyard structure courses due to the fact 2003, constructing on this working experience, this new class has been developed with OCN NI to support fulfil this expanding curiosity.”

Gear-clever, Joanna says garden layout practitioners “require only a basic quantity of drawing devices”.

She also insists that it’ll go well with gardeners of all preferences: “Whether your choice is clean up very simple lines of ultra-modern gardens, or the informality of wildlife gardens, pupils will have the prospect to create their layout expertise inside their possess area of fascination.”

If you fancy oneself as the upcoming Bunny Guinness (God forbid) or Diarmuid Gavin (Yikes) and aspiration of producing a haven for relaxation or some thing that’ll satisfy the wants of a loved ones, Serc’s program could be proper up your gravel and pink brick back garden path.

The training course operates for 3 several hours on a Tuesday morning every single week at the Holywood Campus. Graduates will have the expertise to build structure options and layouts to accommodate any quick, from a compact backyard garden which have to dwelling refuse bins or a gas tank, suitable as a result of to much larger landscapes.

You will find an alternative to go on into a next 12 months to obtain an OCN Amount 2 Extended Diploma in backyard layout (3 hrs on a Tuesday afternoon), which requires finding out yard types, plant and soil science and plant care. Eventually, students could development to the RHS Degree 2 Plant Advancement and Advancement also presented at SERC.

The system fees £277 for the year, with a 25 for every cent concession for those aged around 60 and a even more concession for all those who are suitable in receipt of advantages.