A natural garden is one that appears to be a relatively natural occurrence: not contrived or planned by man, and not maintained with any substantial input by man. Although natural gardens may, in fact, be planned, and may require routine maintenance; it is just these things are not obvious.
Natural gardens frequently make use of the indigenous flora, or native plants of a particular area. It might make use of other plants as well. Your choice of plants for a natural garden will largely depend upon what affect you are trying to achieve. To appear informal a natural garden should have curves rather than being angular; is informal rather than formal and tends to incorporate nature rather than manipulate it.
Over ten lessons this course develops your understanding of how natural environments work and the concepts of natural garden design. Know how to produce concept and detailed innovative plans for low maintenance natural gardens (eg. woodland gardens, desert gardens, wild gardens, indigenous plant gardens, etc.) using indigenous plants or a mixture of indigenous and other plants) plus suitable landscape features.
Lesson Structure
There are 8 lessons in this course:
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Introduction to Natural, Wild and Bush Gardens
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What is a Natural Garden
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Natural Gardens in Different Countries
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Soils
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Mulches
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Resources
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History of Natural, Wild and Bush Gardens
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Introduction
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History and contributors to the Natural Garden movement
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Theories of Natural Gardening
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History of Gardening
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Capability Brown
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Jeckyll
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Jens Jensen
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Margery Fish
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Edna Walling
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Ellis Stones
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Developing Concept Plans
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Landscape Design Principles
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Qualities of Landscape Components
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Creating Effects
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Collecting Pre Planning Details
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Drawing Plans
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Design Procedure
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Plants for Natural Gardens
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Planting
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Plant Establishment
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Building Raised Beds
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Mulching
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Nutrition
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Plant Propagation, species variation, provenance seed source
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Plants for Temperate Wild Gardens
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Plant Maintenance
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Planting Design in Natural Gardens
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Copying Nature
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Understanding Successions
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Planting Design
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Three Tier Planting
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Aesthetic Criteria for Planting Design
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Procedures for Planting Design
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Plant Application; trees, shrubs, groundcovers, vines and creepers
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Natural Weed Control
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Invasive Plants
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Managing Plant Health
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Types of Natural Gardens
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Rainforest Gardens
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Meadow Gardens
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Woodland Gardens
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Desert Gardens
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Xeriscapes
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Garden Features
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Pathways
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Ornamentation
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Walls
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Rockeries
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Artificial Rocks
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Terraces and Patios
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Drainage and Erosion
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Natural Gardens Today
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Introduction
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Wildlife
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Landscaping a Wildlife Garden
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Birds, Reptiles, Mammals
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Ponds
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Attracting and Feeding Birds
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Considering Shaded Areas
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Ferns
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Bringing It All Together.
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Massed Plantings
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Drifts
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Spotting feature plantings
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Geometric Plantings
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.
Aims
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Explain the concept of natural gardens.
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Prepare concept plans for different natural gardens.
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Plan the incorporation of appropriate plants into a natural garden design.
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Plan the appropriate incorporation of non-living landscape features in a natural garden.
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Produce detailed plans for a natural garden.
What You Will Do
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Explain the historical development of natural garden design, in your locality.
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Analyse plant inter-relationships within a specific natural environment (e.g. an area of bushland).
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Analyse the design of three natural gardens, in an essay illustrated with photographs or sketches.
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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.
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Develop three alternative natural garden concept plans for the same specified site.
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Collect pre-planning information for a site for a proposed natural garden, by conducting a site survey, and interviewing a prospective client.
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Explain, through a sequence of illustrations, a logical process of developing a design for a natural garden, on a specific site surveyed by you.
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Prepare concept plans for two small natural gardens, including: *A rainforest garden *A sclerophyll garden.
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List fifty different plants suitable for use in a natural garden design, of a specific style on a specified site, in your locality.
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Explain compatibility considerations, when selecting different plants to include in the same natural garden design.
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Develop a nursery customer information sheet, to provide guidelines for planting design of a natural garden.
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Prepare a plant collection of fifty relevant plants, which includes: *A photo, drawing or pressed specimen of each plant *Plant names (scientific and common) *Cultural details *Uses/applications in garden design.
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Prepare planting designs for three different styles of low maintenance garden beds, between 30 and 60 square meters each in size, and using only Australian Native plants.
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Explain design options for six different landscape features in a natural garden, including: *Rockeries *Patios *Water features *Paths.
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Describe the characteristics, including: *Cost *Availability *Longevity *Appearance *Maintenance, of ten different landscape materials, suited for use in a natural garden design.
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Design a water feature for a natural garden, incorporating: *Concept drawings *Materials list *Cost estimates *Guidelines for construction.
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Explain, using illustrations, the structural design of a masonry garden wall.
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Explain, using illustrations, different appropriate applications for timber structures in a natural garden design.
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Prepare plans, including structural diagrams and materials lists, for the construction of three different landscape features, which are appropriate for inclusion in a natural garden.
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Develop a design "Brief" for a natural garden, in consultation with a client, through an interview and site inspection.
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Design a natural garden of 200 to 500 square metres, including: *A landscape plan drawn on tracing paper *Materials specifications, including types and quantities, to suit a site surveyed by you, and emphasising one type of plant, such as ferns, wildflowers or sclerophyll type plants.
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Prepare a detailed professional standard plan for a natural garden of 500 to 2000 square metres, to an acceptable industry standard for a professional garden designer, which includes: *A landscape plan drawn on tracing paper *Materials specifications, including types and quantities.
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Explain the purpose behind decisions made by you in a natural garden designed by you.
WHAT IS A NATURAL GARDEN?
Broadly speaking, a natural garden is one that appears to be a relatively natural occurrence: not contrived or planned by man, and not maintained with any substantial input by man.
Although natural gardens may, in fact, be planned, and may require routine maintenance; it is just these things are not obvious.
A natural garden frequently makes use of the indigenous flora, or native plants of a particular area. It might make use of other plants as well. Your choice of plants for a natural garden will largely depend upon what affect you are trying to achieve.
To appear informal a natural garden should have curves rather than being angular; is informal rather than formal and tends to incorporate nature rather than manipulate it.
Problems arise with the definitions of ‘nature’ and ‘native’. Native plants have been defined as being anything from local or regional to national and even continental. The terms indigenous or endemic should be used with care, as they are generally regarded as “scientific” terms.
In the United States there is also debate as to what should be deemed native from a historical context. Some would argue that only plants which date back to prior to the original European settlement of 1492 should be labelled native. Others have suggested that any plants that have been there for 200 years should be considered native. The term ‘naturalised’ may be used for plants which are not truly native, but have been long-established in a country or area: e.g. 70 species of Eucalypt, (native trees from different parts of Australia), are found in Cyprus but only a very few - perhaps 6 species - have recorded there for sufficiently long periods to be regarded as ‘naturalised’ and thus included in the native flora.
Definitions of terms:
- Native: originating in a specific place – kangaroos are native to Australia (Collins English Dictionary 1979 edition)
- Natural: existing in or produced by nature (Collins English Dictionary 1979 edition)
Indigenous: originating or occurring naturally, not imported (Collins English Dictionary 1979 edition) - Endemic: present within a localised area (Collins English Dictionary 1979 edition): a plant that is confined to a certain limited area; for example Cedrus libani subsp. brevifolia is found only on the island of Cyprus – it is endemic to the island.
The term ‘nature’ has been applied to natural gardens with no less ambiguity. Given that nature is a construct created by man, what is included within nature is perhaps best considered in relation to social, cultural, political and aesthetic influences of the period in history and the country.
Natural gardens can take on many different forms within the same country since there can be a vast array of flora and fauna and different natural landscapes.
FREQUENT QUESTIONS
Why Choose This Course
- Unique course materials (developed by our staff) and more current than some colleges (many reviewed annually); as a result, ACS graduates can be more up to date.
- We work hard to help you understand and remember it, develop an ability to apply it in the real world, and build networks with others who work in this field (It’s more than just serving up a collection of information –if all you want is information, buy a book; but if you want an education, that takes learning to a whole new level).
- Start whenever you want, study at your own pace, study anywhere
- Don’t waste time and money traveling classes
- We provide more choices–courses are written to allow you more options to focus on parts of the subject that are of more interest to you; a huge range of elective subjects are offered that don’t exist elsewhere.
- Tutors are accessible (more than elsewhere) – academics work in both the UK and Australia, 5 days a week, 16 hours a day. Answering emails and phone calls from students are top priority.
- We treat students as individuals –don’t get lost in a crowd. Our tutors communicate with you one to one.
- Extra help at no extra cost if needed. When you find something you cannot do, we help you through it or will provide another option.
- Support after you finish a course –We can advise about getting work, starting business, writing a CV, etc. We can promote students and their businesses through our extensive profile on the internet. Graduates who ask will be helped.
- Support from a team of a dozen professional horticulturists, living in different parts of the UK, and in both temperate and tropical climate zones of Australia.
About ACS
ACS was started in 1979 by John Mason, who at the time was a gardening author, horticultural consultant and lecturer in horticulture at several colleges across Melbourne (in Australia). Over the summer that year John discovered that there were thousands of applicants going to be turned away from horticulture courses at Burnley Horticultural College (now Melbourne University). There were simply too few courses being offered for the number of people wanting to study horticulture in Australia. This situation prompted a move to establish a correspondence course at Burnley; but after months of unsuccessful lobbying for support from government; John wrote a course, and with help from a colleague at Council of Adult Education, marketed it.
Standards were originally set in line with what were seen to be the standards of Australia's top horticultural college; and over the years, those standards have never been reduced. This makes our courses longer and more demanding than some other colleges; but it has also led to us building a credibility that stands tall in the horticulture industry across the world.
In the early 1990's John started visiting the UK and becoming involved with the horticulture industry there. Around the mid 1990's ACS began offering RHS courses, and in 2003, John was formally recognised for his contribution to British Horticulture by being made a fellow of the Institute of Horticulture. ACS, as a school, established an office and staff in the UK in 2001, and has expanded considerably since then. Today it is formally affiliated with five other colleges in the UK (including Warwickshire College); all of who license and deliver ACS courses.
A team of leading horticulturists work for the school's horticulture department, including 12 faculty members in both the UK and Australia
How You Study
- As soon as you enroll, we send an email to explain it all.
- We direct you to a short orientation video (downloadable over the internet) to watch, where our principal introduces you to how the course works, and how you can access all sorts of support services
- You are either given a code to access your course online, or sent out a CD or course materials through the mail (or by courier).
- Work through lessons one by one, each lesson typically having four parts:
- An aim -which tells you what you should be achieving in the lesson
- Reading -notes written and regularly revised by our academic staff
- Set Task(s) -These are practicals, research or other experiential learning tasks that strengthen and add to what you have been reading
- Assignment -By answering questions, submitting them to a tutor, then getting feedback from the tutor, you confirm that you are on the right track, but more than that, you are guided to consider what you have been studying in different ways, broadening your perspective and reinforcing what you are learning about
- Other - Your work in a course rarely stops at just the above four parts. Different courses and different students will need further learning experiences. Your set task or assignment may lead to other things, interacting with tutors or people in industry, reviewing additional reference materials or something else. We treat every student as an individual and supplement their learning needs as the occasion requires.
- We provide access to and encourage you to use a range of supplementary services including an online student room, including online library; student bookshop, newsletters, social media etc.
- We provide a "student manual", that is a quick solution to most problems that might occur
Recognition
- ACS has a highly respected international profile: by employers and academics alike. People are more aware of us than many other distance education schools –just do a search for “horticulture distance education courses” and see what comes up on the internet; or search for ACS Distance education on Facebook or Linked in, and see how many connections we have compared to other colleges.
- Recognised by International Accreditation and Recognition Council
- ACS has been educating people around the world since 1979
- Over 100,000 have now studied ACS courses, across more than 150 countries
- Formal affiliations with colleges in five countries
- A faculty of over 40 internationally renowned academics –books written by our staff used by universities and colleges around the world.
Extra Books or Reference Materials
- The course provides you with everything that you need to complete it successfully.
- Assignments may ask you to look for extra information (eg. by contacting nurseries, visiting gardens or searching the internet), but our school's resources and tutors are always available as a back up. If you hit a "roadblock", we can quickly send you additional information or provide expert advice over the phone or email; to keep you moving in your studies.
- Some students choose to buy additional references, to take their learning beyond what is essential for the course. If a student wants to buy books, we operate an online bookshop offering ebooks written by staff at the school. Student discounts are available if you are studying with us. The range of e books available is being expanded rapidly, with at least one new ebook being written and published by our staff every month. See www.acsebook.com
Learn How to Design a Natural Garden or Landscape by Home Studies -Garden School Landscaping Training Program -UK Horticultural College
