What do you use to build a garden?

• Soil,
• rocks,
• plants,
• paving
• ....and lots more.

A natural progression from Landscaping I, but a self contained study unit in its own right, that concentrates on the detail of creating individual components in a landscape. You learn to design and build such things as walls, rockeries, steps, ponds, & paving; and you develop skills to create specific effects in a garden.

There are 12 lessons in this course:

1. The Garden Environment
2. Landscape Materials
3. Using Bulbs and Annuals
4. Landscaping with Trees
5. Ground Cover Plants
6. Walls and Fences
7. Paths and Paving
8. Treatment of Slopes and Other Problem Areas
9. Garden Features
10. Designing for Low Maintenance
11. Development of a Landscape Plan
12. Management of Landscape Projects

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

• Determine the resources required for a landscape development, including materials and equipment.
• Determine appropriate plants for different locations within a landscape.
• Determine the appropriate design and construction for landscape features, including walls, fences, pavers and buildings.
• Determine treatments for problem areas in a landscape, including slopes and hostile environments.
• Analyse maintenance requirements for a landscape.
• Develop a landscape development plan, in accordance with a client brief, and in liaison with the client.
• Plan the management of a landscape projects.

• Determine landscape materials readily available in the learners locality, including: soils, gravels, mulches and timbers.
• Differentiate between landscape applications for twenty different types of timber.
• Compare a range of materials in terms of function and aesthetics, including five types of mulches and five types of gravels.
• Determine applications for five different specific items of machinery in landscape construction including a chainsaw, an earth moving machine, a rotary hoe and a tractor.
• List minimum equipment required to construct two different landscapes in accordance with project specifications.
• Determine criteria for selecting plants to be planted in 3 specified locations.
• Explain the impact of trees in two specific landscapes, on both the environment and aesthetics of those landscapes.
• Determine twenty different herbaceous plants, to grow in three different specified locations within the same garden.
• Prepare a design for an annual flower display bed of 50 sq. metres.
• List five groundcovers suited to plant in four different situations, including full shade, half shade, full sun and hanging baskets.
• Prepare a planting design for a 100 sq. metre area of garden, using only groundcovers and trees.
• List ten trees suited to each of the following cultural situations, in your locality: waterlogged soil; sandy soil; heavy soil; saline soil; fire prone sites and near drainage pipes.