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Distance Education Was First Step to Chelsea Medal

A landscape designer from Hampshire has proved that home study can be a viable alternative to horticultural college as a step towards the accolade of a Chelsea Flower Show medal.

For two years running, Carole Nottage has designed an award winning courtyard garden at the RHS show, using knowledge gained while following a distance education course run by the Somerset-based Institute of Landscape Design.

The former specialist teacher enrolled on the Diploma in Landscape Design in the spring of 2000, as a way of making better use of the gardening vouchers she had won in ‘Basingstoke in Bloom’. “I was already helping other people with their gardens and thought the Diploma would mean I had more substance behind me” she says. “I had considered going to evening classes, but they aren’t always easily accessible when you live in a rural village.”

A year after embarking on her Diploma, Carole’s amateur gardening club in Heath End was invited to create a courtyard garden for Chelsea. Her fellow club members were nervous at the prospect, but told her “If you want to do it - you go ahead and design it!” Carole’s design portrayed a local Hampshire tradition of besom broom making, and inspired the whole community to become involved by growing plants and donating props. Their efforts were rewarded with an RHS silver medal, and she says their club membership soared!

Carole was awarded the Diploma last Christmas, and this year repeated the club’s success at Chealsea by designing an authentic “Chocolate Box” cottage garden. The design used 54 varieties of traditional plants, replicating detail provided by Cadburys’ own archives, and earned the club a bronze medal along the way.

As well as her Chelsea victories, Carole has already researched and designed five gardens for clients since gaining her qualification and has now given up teaching to concentrate on her blossoming career.

She says: “I must admit the course was hard work at times. It took me 18 months to complete, which is about average, and I found that as I neared the end I worked harder and became more and more enthusiastic. My local library was really helpful in getting books to help with research, and because you have to do a certain amount for yourself, it sinks in more than if you were just listening to other people in a classroom. You also have the regular feedback from your personal tutor, and a contact list of other students if you want to brain-storm.”

Carole says her course tutor was “very constructive” and even wrote to her after she completed the course to say he had visited her garden at Chelsea. “Another advantage of the course is that you are learning from real professionals and tend to read a lot about the subject, so you learn many tricks of the trade which come in handy in real life.” She adds that she hasn’t looked back and would recommend it to anyone who has some degree of creativity and ideas, enthusiasm, and most importantly, a love of plants.

* The Diploma of Landscape Design is suitable for anyone ranging from learners who want to improve their own garden, to budding professionals. The course material is supplied in one complete pack, and includes ten real-world assignments, a landscape designer starter kit, a video and 3D Landscape Deluxe computer software. Students are also equipped with a NUS discount card and are able to take advantage of free help with any potential landscape design commissions. After qualifying they not only get the Institute’s Diploma in Landscape Design, but are also added to the Institute’s list of Approved Landscape Designers.

The Diploma of Landscape Design course is accredited by the ODLQC (Open and Distance Learning Quality Council) and attracts students world-wide. Contact: the Institute of Garden Design, Honeycombe House, Bagley, Wedmore, Somerset, BS28 4TD. Telephone (01934) 713563; e-mail: GD@inst.org or visit the web-site on www.inst.org/GD

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For further information, and/or to arrange a photograph of Carole Nottage, please contact Kit Sadgrove on 01934 713563.