Qualifications
I have now finished my part-time Garden Design course at the Inchbald School of Design in London. Leaving with a great set of new skills, a distinction and the judge's award for my work, I feel it was worth doing!
Going forward this web page will centre on the Garden Design side of my business rather than the gardening for private clients, which I also do. My ideal world is to combine the two: The work at the desk with a genorous amount of being outside, gardening in all weathers.
The start of my gardening career
After arriving in the UK in summer 2013, following my husband's change of workplace, I started volunteering at Sir Harold Hillier Arboretum in Romsey. I always loved gardening and I needed to learn English. Later in 2014 I started to work in a primary school, offering gardening to the children on one day a week. And, also in 2014, I got roped in as a gardener by my first private client, who saw me doing the school's front garden.
From speaking to staff at Hilliers I learned that many of the gardeners are career-changers. The gardens also had a healthy group of students from all over the world, who attended an intriguing plant-ID session once a week and I managed to be accepted into this. (Thank you Fran and Barry!) So it happened that I learned botanical Latin alongside English.
RHS level 2 and 3 qualifications
The new found knowledge inside an old love of gardening led me to pursue this in a more formal way too. I enrolled at Sparsholt College for the level 2 course. All this was only possible because it was part-time learning. I gained ever more private clients for my small gardening business and also kept volunteering at Hilliers Arboretum a few hours a week, now in the propagation unit. I volunteered until 2025, with a forced gap during covid lock downs.
The RHS also offers a higher qualification on level 3, which I also took on - the practical part again at Sparsholt College and later I finished my RHS level 3 Certificate as an online student with Edinburgh Botanic Gardens.
Certificates
Instead of the certificates, I'm adding screenshots from my RHS candidate account here. That's the easiest way for me to show my qualifications and it says exactly, what subjects I covered as part of my qualification.
Level 3 theory results, the Level 3 practical and Level 2 theory classes. If you like to know more about the RHS' qualifications, here are all levels explained.
