Garden Design School's Guest Speakers
Not only do Garden Design School students on all of our garden design courses benefit from the expert training of the school’s principals, Robin Templar Williams and Moira Farnham, but they also receive invaluable tuition from a wealth of the industry’s top specialists.
Garden Design School is proud to offer lectures and workshops from the following industry gurus:
Richard Baker Dip Arch RIBA
Specialist Subject: Planning and Gardens
Richard Baker is a very experienced chartered architect who has worked for many years in planning and conservation in London and the South East. He has also won a Gold Medal for landscape design at the Chelsea Flower Show.
Richard's lecture within the our flagship garden design course (the Diploma) covers how the planning system impacts on garden designers. It contains lots of useful, practical guidance and advice on Planning Law, Policy and making a Planning Application. Richard says: "If you're advising clients on the development of land, you need to be informed and aware of planning requirements. Many proposals don't actually require planning permission but if you're extending a garden, creating garden structures, altering landform, disturbing wildlife or dealing with historic buildings and landscapes, you will need to engage with the planning process."
James Steele Sargent
Specialist Subject: Contract Documentation
Managing Director of Arun Landscapes Ltd. Founder member and past chairman of the Association of Professional Landscapers. Worked as a contractor in the industry for 23 years. In that time he has constructed 56 award winning RHS show gardens, and Arun Landscapes have won 6 major national industry awards.
Kristina Fitzsimmons MA(Hons) Cantab, MSGD
Specialist Subject: Plant Science, Classification and Nomenclature
London-based Kristina Fitzsimmons studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, specialising in applied plant sciences and, for a number of years, taught Biology to ‘A’ level students. Her love of plants and skill as a trained botanist gradually evolved into a professional interest in garden design: she trained at the English Gardening School and now runs her own, highly successful, garden design consultancy.
She has exhibited a variety of work at the Chelsea and Hampton Court flower shows and became a registered Member of the Society of Garden Designers (MSGD) in 1992. She is also part of the schools’ education team at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London.
More information: www.kristinafitzsimmons.co.uk
Ian Humby MRICS, AMInsc CES
Specialist Subject: Surveying
Ian Humby is a self-employed, chartered land surveyor with over 25 years experience. He routinely works with architects, developers and landscape architects but, since 1997, has specialised in providing surveying services to garden designers. He has tackled almost every type of project imaginable, from small domestic gardens to 100-acre sites.
His philosophy on teaching surveying and levelling skills within our garden design courses is to keep things simple: “I just try to de-mystify the whole process. Surveying is an important aspect of garden design but the basics aren’t difficult to grasp if they are taught properly.”
More information: www.ianhumby.co.uk
Martin Kelley
Specialist Subject: Water Garden Design & Construction
Martin Kelley has been involved in the design and creation of garden water features all his working life. He trained under Anthony Archer-Wills for over 10 years and then started his own company, Fairwater Ltd, in 1993.
Widely regarded as one of the UK’s leading water garden experts, he acts as technical consultant, designer and contractor for many leading garden designers and landscape architects. For Martin, water has a unique, magical quality which works well in almost any garden, large or small. He’s designed and built everything from a single, bubbling stone to a project featuring a seven-hectare lake, fountains, waterfalls, streams, water sculptures and natural swimming pools!
More information: www.fairwater.co.uk
Richard Key FSGD
Specialist Subject (1):
Setting Up & Running A Garden Design Business
Specialist Subject (2):
Marketing & Promotion
Writer, broadcaster and award-winning garden designer Richard Key has worked in the landscape and garden design industries for over 30 years and is an experienced and respected lecturer at some of the UK's leading garden design colleges. He is also a Fellow and former Vice Chairman and Treasurer of the Society of Garden Designers (SGD). Richard is eminently qualified to lecture on his chosen subjects: he set up his own, successful garden design practice fifteen years ago and is also co-director of a thriving garden maintenance company, Key Gardencare. He is fairly uncompromising about what it really takes to set up, run and promote a profitable business: “I have pretty clear and strong views, leaving students with no illusions about the realities of being a professional garden designer in this harsh financial climate. And no matter how well you design, it’s marketing that puts your name out there and selling your skills and services effectively that wins you the job.”
More information: www.richardkey.co.uk
Tony Lane
F.Arbor.A., MIC For., MRICS,
HND RRM., Tech.Cert.Arbor.A.
Specialist Subject: Arboriculture (Trees)
Garden designers need to understand how to choose new trees and the implications of integrating existing ones into their designs in an imaginative but responsible, sustainable way. Garden Design School’s guest lecturer, Tony Lane, is a highly respected expert on this subject. A chartered forester and professional member of the Arboricultural Association, he is the director and senior consultant of a general practice, A M Lane Ltd.
In the lecture which Tony delivers as part of our garden design Diploma course, Tony uses case histories and lively anecdotes to explain the most important do's and don'ts concerning tree selection, location, growth, maintenance and safety. He examines the importance of conserving our existing tree stock and being aware of legal issues in the form of Tree Preservation Orders (TPO's), Conservation Areas and Planning Conditions. He also looks at the planning considerations and the implications of the recently revised BS5837 : 2005 (Trees in relation to construction - Recommendations)
More information: www.amlane.co.uk
Michael Shackleton
Specialist Subject: Garden Lighting
Having spent over 30 years working in the film industry - much of it as a lighting cameraman - there isn't much you can teach Michael Shackleton about the impact and effect of lighting on mood and atmosphere. He has since used this experience to create one of the UK's most successful garden lighting businesses, Ornamental Garden Lighting. Mike regularly works with landscape and garden designers and emphasises the need to build a rapport: "the key to lighting a garden is working very closely with the designer to complement and enhance their vision so that the client can enjoy their garden at night as much as they do during the day”. Mike’s Garden Design School lecture examines all of the potential benefits of garden lighting, the social and environmental impact, costs, the practicalities of installation and some of the most common pitfalls and problems.
More information: www.ornamentalgardenlighting.com
Nicholas Wray MHort (RHS) F.I.Hort
Specialist Subject: Plant Naming and Horticultural Practise
Nicholas Wray is Curator of the University of Bristol Botanic Garden. He has worked in the Botanic Garden and University environment for 25 years, one of his key roles being to manage and develop the Garden’s educational programme. He has lectured on a wide range of horticultural subjects for many years and has travelled extensively, studying plants in the wild. In 1998 he was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Horticulture.
We are pleased to be able feature Nicholas’s lectures on plant naming and taxonomy and soil science and basic botany within our flagship garden design course (the Diploma). His sessions give students an understanding of why and how to write plant names properly (Nicholas believes: “If you want to make a professional presentation, writing plant names correctly on plans and planting lists is crucial, not least because of the commercial implications”) and a fundamental understanding of how and what plants need to grow successful: “correct plant selection and appropriate maintenance are critical to every successful garden design” he says.