Garden your way out of recession with UCF

Credit crunchers take note - University College Falmouth (UCF) is offering a three-day garden design summer school in July for gardeners in search of the perfect garden with the minimum of expenditure.

You will be joining gardening experts, Richard Sneesby and Matt James. Richard is course leader of the nationally acclaimed BA(Hons) Garden Design course, a landscape architect and garden designer, television presenter and co-author of The Garden Makers Manual. He most recently wrote the main "how to design" section for the Royal Horticultural Society's new Encyclopaedia of Garden Design, published in March this year.

Matt is a horticulturalist, lecturer in garden design at UCF and probably best known as Channel 4's City Gardener. He is the author of the City Garden Bible and currently the garden columnist for the News of the World newspaper.

The course will focus on how to create sustainable award-winning gardens in the middle of a recession focusing on aspects of change which create maximum impact. It is ideally suited to anyone wanting to transform their garden through clever design, and for those who wish to dip their toe into the garden design profession.

Key areas for exploration and creativity will cover levels of intervention: prioritising what you can achieve within a limited budget or with limited time; strategies for developing new areas and details using built elements and effective planting design; creating atmosphere and the all important sense of place; relieving stress and creating sensory benefits; creating space for growing food and turning your garden into a space that enhances your home and lifestyle. Designing on a budget doesn't mean reigning in your creativity but allowing your inventiveness to develop and grow.

In addition to lectures, workshops and discussion groups you will visit some of Cornwall's most beautiful gardens to test ideas and concepts. Lamorran House, where an intimate garden with water ever-present presents the ideal location to discover sub-tropical vegetation and plants; Caervallack Garden, the result of a collaboration between the artist, Louise McClary's flowering herbaceous borders and architect, Matt Robinson's architectural creations: and Potager, a new organic garden emerging from an old nursery close to the Helford Estuary that demonstrates ideas of sustainability through gardening philosophy.

Last year's summer school gained rave reviews. Christine Acas knew that her snap decision to travel from New York to attend would be a life-changing experience. "The best gardening books I have are by Richard and Matt, so when I saw they were running this course and it was being held in Cornwall, I simply had to come," she said. "Its unique to have two garden designers with their reputation teaching a course. I gained a lot of self-confidence in my own ideas and have learned the key elements of garden design and been encouraged in my own individual creative vision."

Deborah Mathisen from Norway agreed with Chhristine and added; "You learn much more about gardening by talking to other people who are passionate about it rather than by sitting in isolation. It's been fantastic to see the structure and approach that Matt and Richard take to garden design and visiting the real gardens, chatting with the people who created them and hearing their ideas was really informative and inspirational. It makes you start to think about your own garden and the endless possibilities."

For further information about the Garden Design Summer School at University College Falmouth, visit www.falmouth.ac.uk/summerschool, email business@falmouth.ac.uk or telephone Business Relations on 01326 370444.

University College Falmouth is the only independent Higher Education institution in Cornwall with the powers to award degrees in its own name. It has two campuses in Cornwall - at Woodlane in Falmouth and Tremough in Penryn (which it owns, and jointly manages with the University of Exeter) - and a third campus at Totnes in Devon, following its merger with Dartington College of Arts in 2008.

This merger created a new institution focusing on the expansion of Falmouth's expertise in Art, Design and Media and Dartington's expertise in Choreography, Music, Theatre, Art and Writing. The Devon-based courses will relocate to a new, high-specification Performance Centre at Tremough in 2010, paving the way for a new specialist Arts University in Cornwall by 2012, that will be unique to the South West.

The College is a founding partner in the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC), a unique initiative to promote regional economic regeneration through Higher Education, funded mainly by the European Union, the South West Regional Development Agency, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, with support from Cornwall County Council.

Ends

For further information about University College Falmouth, please contact Jilly Easterby MCIPR, Head of Public Affairs, Telephone: 01326 213792; or email: jilly.easterby@falmouth.ac.uk

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