Landscaping II

Develop Your Landscape Design Skills

Basic landscape design is concerned with how to do things like how hard landscape features are made and selecting plants to suit the location. When you have mastered that it is logical to want to expand on that knowledge and learn more about different groups of plants and how to use them, how to overcome problem areas and greater detail of hard landscape construction options.

Improve your knowledge and skills of landscaping with this short, intensive course!

This course concentrates on the detail of creating individual components in a landscape that are the difference between a good and a great garden.

• Learn to design and build such things as walls, rockeries, steps, ponds, and paving; and you develop skills to create specific effects in a garden.
• For those working or looking to work in the industry, or enthusiastic gardeners with good basic landscaping knowledge.

This course is a natural progression from Landscaping I, but can be taken as a stand-alone study unit in its own right. This course concentrates on the detail of creating individual components in a landscape that are the difference between a good and a great garden.

Lesson Structure

There are 12 lessons in this course:

1. The Garden Environment
   • The ecosystem
   • Microclimates
   • What do you want in a garden
   • Components of a garden
   • Landscaping with water
   • Choosing a construction method for a water garden
   • Making a pool with a liner
   • Other types of water gardens
   • Water garden effects
   • Creating a waterfall
   • Cascades
   • Fencing and safety
   • Plants for water gardens
2. Landscape Materials
   • Tools
   • Tool maintenance
   • Garden clothes
   • Construction materials
   • Concrete and cement
   • How to mix concrete and mortar
   • Reinforcing, rodding, expansion joints
   • Gravel and mulched paths
   • Outdoor furniture
   • Timber: types, stains, paints, preservatives
   • Plastics, Metal, Ulpholstery
   • Furniture design
3. Using Bulbs, Annuals and other Low Growing Plants
   • Annuals
   • Scented annuals
   • Coloured foliage
   • Flower bed layout
   • Bedding schemes
   • Selecting annuals according to height
   • Annuals in containers
   • Bulbs
   • Scented bulbs
   • Amaryllis
   • Gladioli
   • Narcissus
   • Dahlia
   • Hyacinth
   • Iris
   • Ranunculus
   • Using Herbs
   • Types of herb gardens
4. Landscaping with Trees
   • Introduction
   • Successions
   • Fast growing trees
   • Choosing plants
   • Trees in the landscape
   • Problems with trees
   • Plant applications for trees, shrubs, ground covers
   • Trees with damaging roots
   • Trees with narrow canopies
   • Aesthetic criteria for planting design
   • Procedure for planting design
5. Ground Cover Plants
   • Introduction
   • Ground Covers: conifers, climbers, creepers, ornamental grasses
   • Low grasses to grow
   • How to build raised beds
   • Grevilleas
   • Thryptomene
   • Brachysema
   • Chorizema
   • Ardenbergia
   • Kennedya
   • Herbs: Thyme, chamomile, mint, alpine strawberry, etc
   • Landscaping with ferns
6. Walls and Fences
   • Introduction
   • Getting the style right
   • Different fences
   • Plants to grow on trellis
   • Espaliers
   • Garden arches
   • Choosing the rich arch
   • Timber and metal arches
7. Paths and Paving
   • Introduction
   • Where to use surfacing
   • Paving: different types of materials
   • Selecting materials
   • Concrete
   • Gravel
   • Asphalt
   • Edging
   • Edging materials
   • Maintaining an edge
   • Aesthetics
8. Treating Slopes and Other Problem Areas
   • Erosion control
   • Helping plants establish on a slope
   • Drip irrigation, mulches, tree guards
   • Pocket planting, slope serration, wattling, spray seeding, etc
   • Shade
   • Plants suited to shade
   • Ferns and shade
   • Windbreaks, hedges and screens
   • Gardening in coastal areas
   • Design and planting a firebreak
   • Fire resistant plants
9. Garden Features
   • Colour
   • Complementing colours
   • Outdoor living areas: Patios, seating, garden structures, pool areas, pool surrounds
   • Rockeries
   • Drystone walls
   • Wet walls
   • Garden buildings and structures
   • Siting garden buildings
   • What to build
   • What to do with the floor
   • Planting around a garden building
   • Protective structures
   • Types of greenhouses
   • Decorative planters
   • Choosing and siting a planter
   • Garden lighting
   • Lighting trees, paths, ponds etc
   • Letterboxes
10. Designing for Low Maintenance
    • Introduction
    • The cost of garden maintenance
    • What costs
    • Expensive to maintain areas or features
    • Less expensive to maintain areas
    • Gardening in dry areas
    • Overcoming dry soils
    • Drought tolerant plants
    • Hardy plants for inner city gardens
11. Developing a Landscape Plan
    • The site planning process
    • Site analysis
    • Design concept
    • Master plan
    • Keeping it to scale
    • The importance of space
12. Management of Landscape Projects
    • Introduction
    • Mistakes to avoi
    • Earthmoving
    • Importing soil
    • Workplace safety

Aims

• 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.

What You Will Do

• 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.
• Explain local government regulations which are relevant to landscape design and construction.
• Develop design criteria for different garden structures, in specified situations, including: a pergola, swimming pool, steps and a garden seat.
• Compare the design and construction of six different types of barriers, including walls and fences.
• Design a fence for a landscape designed by you, including: construction detail drawing(s), materials specifications and a cost estimate.
• Compare ten specific surfacing materials, in landscapes visited by you, including paving products, stone and gravel.
• Design a set of steps, including construction detail drawing(s), materials specifications and a cost estimate.
• Design a set of retaining walls, including construction, drawings, materials needed and a cost estimate.
• Compare different types of garden buildings observed by you, including sheds, gazebos, car ports and garages, in terms of cost, durability, aesthetics and maintenance required.
• Determine two different methods to treat a specified erosion problem.
• Determine landscape preparations required for different soil types including clay, sand, shale, rocky soil and loam.
• Describe four interim stabilisation techniques, including hydromulching and jutemaster.
• List fifteen plant species which will adapt well to problem situations.
• Determine ten plants suitable for each of a range of different soil types, including: clays, sands, acidic soil and alkaline soil.
• Develop landscape plans, including illustrations and written instructions, for three difficult sites.
• Determine landscape features that contribute towards the reduction of maintenance requirement on a landscaped site.
• Compare the weekly maintenance requirement of a specific low maintenance garden, with that of a specific high maintenance garden.
• Compile pre-planning information for a an existing landscape, which owners require to be redeveloped in order to reduce the maintenance requirement.
• Prepare a detailed landscape design to achieve low maintenance.
• Develop a ten week maintenance program, for a specific landscaped area visited by you.
• Compare copies of two landscape briefs for projects advertised in the tenders column of a newspaper.
• Develop a "client" brief, through an interview with a potential landscape client.
• Survey a landscape site to confirm details in a client brief.
• Develop three alternative concept plans for a landscape, in accordance with a client brief.
• Determine the preferred option, from three concept plans presented to a client at a tape recorded meeting.
• Prepare a detailed landscape design, conforming to decisions made during a discussion of alternative concept plans.
• Prepare a quotation, based on a specified landscape plan.
• Analyse the design of a landscape in comparison with the "Brief".
• Prepare a work schedule according to both specifications and plans.
• Monitor the progress of landscape work on a project, by keeping a logbook or work diary.
• Assess standard of work carried out on a completed landscape project, against landscape plans for that project.
• Select appropriate equipment, including tools and machinery, for a specified project.
• List occupational health and safety regulations when dealing with machinery and equipment, which is relevant to a specified project.
• Schedule the supply of materials and equipment for a project, in the logbook.
• Develop contingency plans for a landscape development which addresses different possible irregularities including bad weather, security problems, weekend watering.
• Explain how to finalise a specified project prior to handing over.
• Explain the importance of monitoring a contract, through a specified project.
• Develop guidelines for supervision of construction for a specified landscape project.

CREATING THE ILLUSION OF SPACE IN GARDENS

When planning the scale of any garden, you should consider the spaces as well as what you are going to put in it.  Space is an essential component of design and if it is not used properly nothing will work.  For example, if you do not leave gaps between trees the garden will feel hemmed-in.  If you plant trees or bushes too close to windows and doors it will seem like the garden is invading the house.  

You will also have to manipulate space to keep it in proportion.  The space between the two edges of a path in a small garden should be considerably less than the space between the two edges of a path in a large garden.  The path itself can be made to look larger by surfacing it with small pavers or fine shingle. By carefully considering where you choose to site garden objects and the amount of space you leave both between them and around them, you can maintain scale and harmony within your garden.
If you only have a small garden to work with, careful planning becomes even more important.  

How This Course Could Help You

This course is best suited to people with some existing knowledge of landscape design. However, people with basic construction skills and plant knowledge may also take it.

It could serve as a platform for further study or be taken in conjunction with other modules to enhance your learning experience. The course is of most value to people working in or wishing to work in:

• Landscape construction
• Garden design
• Garden maintenance
• Garden restoration or conservation

It could also add to the skillset of people wanting to start a garden design business, or be of value to people wishing to renovate a home garden.

This is an ideal course for anyone who wants to improve their knowledge of landscaping. But if you are not sure if this is the right course for you or you have any questions - please ask.  Our tutors are more than happy to help with any questions.  Please click here.