The London College of Garden Design (LCGD) was founded in 2007 when three of the horticultural and design industry’s leading professionals decided that there was a better way of training the Garden Designers of the future.
Andrew Wilson had started new courses at colleges and Andrew Fisher Tomlin also taught at these colleges when they started a conversation about how they could improve training through a new practice-based approach that delivered a masterclass every day. For that they needed the support of the industry and were joined by leading professionals such as designer and horticulturist Peter Thurman and designer and landscaper Mark Gregory (a founder and Director until 2018).
The College launched its first courses at Regent’s University in central London in 2007 and moved to its home in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 2009 where it has been ever since. The Royal Horticultural Society, understanding the need for offering garden design courses to its members appointed LCGD as the preferred supplier of design training in 2011 and we continue to offer courses on their behalf from RHS Garden Wisley to this day.
The original Garden Design Diploma course launched in 2007 has been joined by specialist continuing professional development courses such as the Planting Design Diploma (2013), the Construction Design Certificate (2019) and the Sustainable Design Certificate (2021). Many of our students graduate to work for some of the world’s leading design offices as well as setting up their own businesses. To date LCGD students and Graduates have won more awards from the Society of Garden Designers, the professional body for garden design, than from any other college.
In 2019 LCGD Melbourne opened in Australia offering a new blended learning 18 month course under the leadership of Brent Reid. Brent is one of Australia’s leading Landscape Designers and has worked internationally with his studio based in Torquay at the gateway to the Great Ocean Road. The College operates in a very similar way to London and is based in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Victoria, Melbourne Gardens offering training to students across Australia and New Zealand. The course is a combination of our Garden Design and Planting Design programmes that we offer in the UK, hence it being a longer course.
The ethos of learning Garden Design from practicing professionals who are up to date with the latest information remains a priority for LCGD today as environmental challenges and regulatory changes make it imperative that our students learn the latest information from the best in our professions. We continue to engage with the industry and the requirements of modern landscape design which means that our courses are constantly evolving and our Graduates achieve successful careers.