This is the week we went live.

On Monday eighteen embryo garden designers were to be found in a garden in Balham. A real garden, belonging to a real house, belonging to a real client. We were there to conduct our first survey. Three teams of three in the morning, crossing over with three teams of three in the afternoon. It was intense.

Each team was allocated a boundary, and our task was to accurately measure everything on that boundary and put it onto a plan. And then the three separate boundaries had to fit together. It was like three different jigsaw pieces, made by three different makers, that all had to join up to create a unified whole.

The next day, back in the studio at Hampton Court, we had to collate all the elements from the previous day, and print 18 copies of an accurate plan for all of us to use as the basis for the individual designs that we are about to embark upon. It was a little bit mad, and a little bit chaotic, as we tried to pull everything together. And all I can say is thank goodness for Annie Guilfoyle, Matthew Childs and Catherine Heatherington.

Annie and Catherine are our tutors, with Matt assisting: border collies to our herd of student sheep. They – like all the tutors at KLC – are practicing garden designers, and boy do they know their stuff. Their commitment to our development is unfailing; their determination to get the best out of us is admirable; their cheerfulness, patience and good humour seem inexhaustible.

I’m sure there are many design schools out there with good tutors. But they can’t be as good as the tutors at KLC….