Design Natural Gardens, Bush Gardens, Sustainable Landscapes.

“This course is great if you want to create gardens that flow with the natural landscape.
Using plants native to your area and blending them with the landscape is perfect for today’s environmental needs.” -<span style="\&quot;font-style:" italic;\"="">Tracey Morris Dip.Hort., Cert.Hort., Cert III Organic Farming.

This course develops your ability to design a bush garden (totally native, or using a mixture of both indigenous and other plants). After developing an understanding of the workings of natural environments you learn to create innovative plans for low maintenance bush gardens.It is ideal for the modern garden as it encourages the use of minimal maintenance and allows for habitats to grow without the need for trimming and hedging. You will find more birds and insects coming back into your garden.

There are 8 lessons in this course:

1. Introduction to Natural Gardens.
2. History of Natural Gardens
3. Developing Concept Plans
4. Plants for Natural Gardens
5. Planting Design in Natural Gardens
6. Natural Garden Features
7. Natural Gardens Today
8. Bringing It All Together.

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.

• Explain the concept of natural gardens.
• Prepare concept plans for different natural gardens.
• Plan the incorporation of appropriate plants into a natural garden design.
• Plan the appropriate incorporation of non-living landscape features in a natural garden.
• Produce detailed plans for a natural garden.

• Explain the historical development of natural garden design, in your locality.
• Analyse plant inter-relationships within a specific natural environment (e.g. an area of bushland).
• Analyse the design of three natural gardens, in an essay illustrated with photographs or sketches.
• Explain, using illustrations, concepts of landscape design, showing their relevance to natural garden design, including:
  • Unity
  • Balance
  • Proportion
  • Harmony
  • Contrast
  • Rhythm
  • Line
  • Form
  • Mass
  • Space
  • Texture
  • Colour
  • Tone.
• Develop three alternative natural garden concept plans for the same specified site.
• Collect pre-planning information for a site for a proposed natural garden, by conducting a site survey, and interviewing a prospective client.
• Explain, through a sequence of illustrations, a logical process of developing a design for a natural garden, on a specific site surveyed by you.
• Prepare concept plans for two small natural gardens, including: *A rainforest garden *A sclerophyll garden.
• List fifty different plants suitable for use in a natural garden design, of a specific style on a specified site, in your locality.
• Explain compatibility considerations, when selecting different plants to include in the same natural garden design.

To learn how to enrol click here