Fundamentals of Garden Design

An Introduction to Landscape Architecture and Design

What you'll learn:

• Students will learn how to prepare a conceptual landscape plan suitable for themselves or presentation
• You will learn how to do a simple site survey of a property and plot it on paper
• How to use different design approaches to give more interest and continuity to your designs
• You will learn how the Planes of Enclosure can make your designs more interesting and dynamic
• You will be shown how to color your plan for presentation and display
• You will have access to bid sheets and examples of contracts for you to use in business and estimating

This is a beginner/intermediate level course in landscape Architecture and Design.

Landscape design is morethan selecting plants for a project, it is the integration of all the elements and spaces that affect our outdoor living environment. In this course you will be introduced to the objectives and principles that are essential to developing a strong design solution for either yourself or for a payingclient, all the while you'll be introduced to new garden and design ideas to help grow your design company. With lessonscovering how to interview the client, design contracts, form composition and selecting a design approach this course is a comprehensive and in-depth journey into the world of truly creative landscape design.

Because I have students taking this course from all over the world with a wide range of climates and plant palettes this is NOT a course on planting design. The basic concepts of how plants can be used within the landscape are discussed, but individual plant species and their use or placement will not be addressed.

The practical skills of drafting to scale, and site surveyswill be explained.Finally, how to take these skills, draw your garden design and create a conceptual garden plan for yourself, family or clientwill be covered in detail.

For those of you working in metric, you'll want to jump straight down to Lecture 75 for a lesson on using the metric scale in design.

This is a course on garden design - not gardening. It is also NOT a course using computer aided design (CAD). The instruction will be in using pen, ink and paper - what I believe is the starting point for all design even if you choose to usea computer program later on. CAD is simply a tool, but if you do not know the basic principles and objectives of design, CAD won't help you. You'll simply do poor designs faster!

The conceptual plan is the starting point for any design project, opening discussion and refining the plan before construction drawings are prepared and it is this approach to design that I will be explaining, demonstrating and clarifying for the student.

What you will get out of this course:

74 lectures walking you through the entire process of creating a conceptual garden plan including garden design basics

Approximately 7 hours of instruction

Lifetime access to the instructor for advice, plan critique, contract review and encouragement

Lifetime access to the course and resources

30-day, money back guarantee

Certificate of Completion when you've finished the Course

Pure and practical advice

Personal guidance and mentoring from someone (me!) who has been designing and creating gardens for over 35 years