Restoring Established Ornamental Gardens 100 Hours Certificate Course

There are 8 lessons:

1 Landscape History & Design Styles

• Ancient Mid-Eastern Gardens
• Chinese Gardens
• UK Garden History
• Characteristics of a Formal Garden
• Important English Landscapers
• Spanish Gardens
• Monastery Gardens
• Olmstead (Frederick Law) 1822-1902
• Burle Marx (Roberto (1909-1994)
• Australian Bush Garden
• Permaculture
• The World's First Plant Collectors: Where Were Plants Introduced First? Important Plant Explorers (Pierre Belon, Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, Tradescants, Sir Hans Sloane, Sir Joseph Banks, Others)

2 Surveying the Site

• Problems
• What to Survey
• Measuring Dimensions and Locations
• Triangulation
• Slope
• Levelling Terms
• Levelling Procedure
• Earthworks Calculations: Volumes of Irregular Solids, Using Triangles, Using Horizontal Measurement, Using Horizontal Angles

3 Assessment of Plantings and Features

• Introduction
• Assessing Planting
• Trees: Where Should You Plant a Shade Tree?, When NOT to Retain a Tree
• Assessing Garden Features: What are These Features? What Degrades? What to Look Out For, Concrete and Cement, What is UV Stabilised?, Fasteners
• Water Problems

4 Selecting Components for Retention

• What Should be Restored?
• Why Keep Something?
• Why Discard Something?
• Renovating Areas in a Garden: Dealing with Weeds, Paving, Trees and Shrubs, Garden Beds, Lawns, Ponds, Furniture and Statuary
• Pruning: Clean Out Dead Wood, Wood Rots, Dead Heading, What is Compartmentalisation? What about Wood Treatments?
• Windbreaks: How do Windbreaks Work? Choosing Windbreak Plants

5 Work Programming and Risk Management

• Introduction: Where to Start
• The Procedure: What Order To Work In
• Risks & Work Safety: Safe Work Management Plans
• Risk Assessment of a Landscape Site: Identifying Hazards and Risk, Risk to the Project, Risk to the Workers, The Area(s) and People That May Be At Risk, The Risks, The Consequences of an Event Happening, The Adequacy of Existing Controls, A Rating of the Consequence, Likelihood and Level of Risk, Risk Control Methods
• Examples of a Risk Assessment Procedure: Example 1, Example 2, Example of a Risk Assessment Form, Control Processes in preferred order
• Safety Techniques: Handling Bricks and Pavers, Slippery Surfaces, Manual Lifting, How to Lift, Other Ways to Lift, Using Machines to do the Heavy Work, Rules for using tools, Checklist for Tools and Machines

6 Drainage

• Drainage: Water-logging on a Home-site, Symptoms of Poor Drainage Systems, Improving soil drainage capacity, Some other ways of addressing these potential problems, Minimum Grades for Surface Drainage, Solving Drainage Problems
• Creating a Drain Pit
• Drainage Design: What a Landscaper Should Know about Drainage, Sub Surface Drainage, Outlet, Gradients, Distance between Drainage Pipes, Depths of Drains, Types of Drains, Laying the Drain
• Moving Existing Earth: When Moving Existing Soil Take into Account, Settling Soil, Erosion
• Leaks: How to Fix a Leaky Tap, How to Seal a Leaking Pipe, How to Fix a Leaking Pond, Leaky Copper Pipes

7 Hard Landscape Feature Restoration

• Paving: Materials Used in Paving, Selecting Materials, Concrete, Gravel, Asphalt, Coloured Surfaces
• Barriers and Walls: Creating Barriers, Fencing Supports, Concrete Mix
• Maintaining Stone and Brick Walls
• Outdoor Furniture: Choices
• Protecting Outdoor Furniture
• Painting Outdoor Furniture
• Difference Between Paint, Stain and Sealer
• Pond Management
• Oxygenating Plants
• Troubleshooting

8 Planting Restoration and Maintenance

• Improving Existing Plantings
• Trees: Tree Surgery, Trees and Paving
• Old and Overgrown Hedges: Replacing an Old Hedge, Rejuvenating Old and Overgrown Hedges
• Pruning and Rejuvinating Other Plants: Controlling the Plants Shape and Size, Pruning Overgrown Shrubs, Removing Dead or Diseased Wood, Controlling the Type of Growth, Pruning Conifers, Rejuvenation Limitations, Pruning overgrown climbers and wall shrubs, Pruning Roses
• The Basic Rules of Pruning
• Rejuvenating Old Lawns: Top-dressing, Fertilising Lawns, Mowing, Turf Mowers, Mowing Guidelines, Mowing Heights
• Perennials: Secrets of Success, Maintenance Hints, Designing a Perennial Display, Bulbs, Landscaping with Bulbs
• Maintaining Herbaceous Borders: Wild Flower Meadows
• Controlling Weeds: What is a Weed? Types of Weeds, Identifying Weeds, Weed Control, Control of Common Weed Situations, Controlling Weed Spread
• Common Weed Control Methods: Suffocation, Burning, Cultivation, Mowing/Slashing, Flooding, Crowning, Changing pH, Biological Control, Chemical Control
• Controlling Pests and Diseases: Chemical Treatments and their Restricted Use
• Some Pests and Their Control
• Plant Diseases: Types of Pathogens, Morphological Symptoms of Plant Diseases, Disease Lifecycles
• Some Diseases and Their Control
• Plant Viruses - Their Detection and Control
• Using Chemicals: Common Methods of Application, Safe Storage of Chemicals, Safely Mixing Chemicals, Correct Usage of Chemicals, Agitation, Cleaning Up and Disposing of Chemicals, Law in relation to chemical use

The quality of this course is second to none, from the in-depth learning you will get to the expert individual mentoring you will receive throughout your studies. The mentors for this course are:

Susan Stephenson

BSc in Applied Plant Biology (Botany) Univ. London 1983.

City and guilds: Garden Centre Management, Management and Interior Decor (1984)

Management qualifications in training with retail store. Diploma in Hort level 2 (RHS General) Distinction.

Susan Stephenson is a passionate and experienced horticulturist and garden designer. She has authored three books, lectures at 2 Further and Higher Education Colleges, teaching people of all ages and backgrounds about the wonders of plants and garden design, and tutors many students by correspondence from all over the world.

Susan studied botany at Royal Holloway College (Univ of London) and worked in the trading industry before returning to her first love plants and garden design. She is therefore, well placed to combine business knowledge with horticulture and design skills. Her experience is wide and varied and she has designed gardens for families and individuals. Susan is a mentor for garden designers who are just starting out, offering her support and advice and she also writes, delivers and assesses courses for colleges, introducing and encouraging people into horticulture and garden design.

In 2010, Susan authored a complete module for a Foundation degree (FDSC) in Arboriculture.

Susan holds the RHS General with Distinction. She continues to actively learn about horticulture and plants and (as her students will tell you) remains passionate and interested in design and horticulture.

Steven Whitaker

Diploma in Garden Design (Distinction) – The Blackford Centre, Gold Certificate of Achievement in Horticulture, Level 2 NVQ in Amenity Horticulture, Level 1 NOCN Introduction to Gardening, – Joseph Priestly College, BTEC Diploma in Hotel, Catering and Institutional Operations (Merit), Trainer Skills 1, & 2, Group trainer, Interview and Selection Skills – Kirby College of Further Education

Steven has a wealth of Horticultural knowledge, having ran his own Design and Build service, Landscaping company, and been a Head Gardener. His awards include five Gold awards at Leeds in Bloom, two Gold awards at Yorkshire in Bloom and The Yorkshire Rose Award for Permanent Landscaping. Steven has worked with TV’s Phil Spencer as his garden advisor on the Channel 4 TV Programme, “Secret Agent”.

He is qualified to Level 2 NVQ in Amenity Horticulture and has a Diploma in Garden Design which he passed with Distinction. Steven’s Tutor and Mentor was the Chelsea Flower Show Gold Award-winning Garden Designer, Tracy Foster. He also works for a major Horticultural Commercial Grower in the field of Propagation and Craft Gardening. Steven lives in Leeds where he is a Freelance Garden Designer and Garden Advice Consultant.