Yesterday was a very big day for the students of KLC.

Seven weeks into the course and all eighteen of us presented real plans of the real garden we had surveyed two weeks ago to our real client.

Picture the scene…..

It’s a beautiful morning, clear blue sky, roads free of traffic (it’s half term) and as I’m driving to school I’m talking to myself. The first sign of madness? Possibly. But actually what I’m doing is practising my presentation. Over and over…..

Because I’m scared.

Our client ( wife, husband and son) is arriving at the Studio at ten and we have been given a strict five minute each to take it in turns to stand up and present our plans. All eighteen of us – to an audience of the client; each other; our Director of Studies, Annie Guilfoyle; and the Principal of KLC, Jenny Gibbs.

Now I’ve done a fair bit of presenting in my time, (although I haven’t stood up in front of an audience for fifteen years) but I’m still feeling really nervous. Because this is a whole new ballgame. I’ve only just started in the business of garden design. And I’m presenting a little bit of a very new me to complete strangers.

I’m on at number sixteen so I see most of the others present before it’s my turn. It’s a long morning, and I’m counting down the people who go before me and feeling more and more anxious. But everyone does really well. We are all nervous. But there are some great ideas. And it’s fascinating to see how eighteen people come up with different design solutions for the same garden.

It’s a relief to get it over and done with. And without falling over or forgetting what I was supposed to say. But the thing that I’m really thrilled about is how much I’ve learned in such a short space of time. I’ve taken a brief, surveyed a site, and drawn up a plan that could actually work.

This is the plan I presented. Seven weeks ago I would not have believed it was possible that I could produce something like this.

Scary…. But so satisfying….

…. there’s a new kid in town.

And it’s me.

Another skill I’ve picked up recently is graffiti writing. It was for a project for the KLC course where we were asked to come up with a concept for The Chelsea Fringe. This is a garden festival which takes place in London in late May and early June.

My idea was inspired by the John Lennon Wall in Prague, a wall in a secluded square opposite the French embassy, where, after Lennon’s death in 1980, his image appeared along with Beatles lyrics and political messages. Despite repeated coats of whitewash, the secret police never managed to keep it clean for long.

After the Velvet Revolution in 1989 the messages became less political. But visiting tourists began to make their own contributions.

On a visit to Prague in 2011 we went to the wall and I noticed a quote which really leapt out at me.

For those who can’t make out the words it says:

‘So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul. Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.’

When I got home I looked it up and found out that it came from a poem called Comes the Dawn.

I thought of this quotation and the impact it had made on me when we were asked to come up with ideas for The Chelsea Fringe. So my suggestion was for an installation to be utilised in areas across London where green space is limited. The installation would comprise of a vertical patchwork of living plants and flowers – a living wall interspersed with garden related quotations, blank spaces for people to add their own garden inspired thoughts, and receptacles for seed packets so that those inspired to do so could go away and begin to ‘decorate their own souls’.

And for my concept board I learnt how to do graffiti writing.

Thank goodness for Google….

… and watch out Banksy.

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….