Michael King

Perennial Meadow Gardening

£125.00
£125.00
Tax included.
Level:



Perennial and grasses expert Michael King — author of The Perennial Garden and co-author of Gardening with Grasses with Piet Oudolf — teaches you how to design and grow a perennial meadow garden inspired by open countryside, fields and prairies.

You'll learn Michael's planting design system, combining bold theme plants with complementary plants for naturalistic, seasonal interest at any scale — from a single border to a full parkland landscape. As you progress you'll be selecting plants, planning site designs and calculating planting quantities.

Suitable for all levels. Includes 4 on-demand video lessons, lifetime access, downloadable notes, practical meadow design projects with optional tutor feedback, and a small interactive online classroom.

Perennial and grasses expert Michael King teaches you how to grow and design a perennial meadow garden.

Michael wrote The Perennial Garden book and co-wrote Gardening with Grasses with garden designer Piet Oudolf.

Perennial meadows can be adapted to any scale from a single garden border, to the replacement of lawns and can be used in wide parkland landscapes. Perennial meadows are inspired by open countryside, fields, meadows and prairies. Michael will also cover the New Perennial Planting design movement, which brings naturalistic planting within the scope of the private garden.

You'll learn Michael's perennial meadow planting design system, which combines planting to fit a range of different settings, and includes bold planting mixtures combining key theme plants with complementary plants. You'll also learn about the ideas underpinning naturalistic plant associations.

Michael will explain the characteristics of effective plants and the role played by complimentary plants to be able to start creating perennial meadow planting schemes of your own. As you learn you'll be selecting plants, planning site design and calculating how many plants are needed, and how to planting and maintaining new schemes.

You'll learn:

  • how to define and use a perennial meadow garden design
  • which plants to include in your designs as theme plants and complementary plants
  • designing your landscape for seasonal interest
  • creating structural garden designs

Absolutely fantastic! With just four sessions i learned so much! Expert comments were helpful and personalized. I especially appreciate learning about new plants and of course the cutting-edge way to design a bed of perennials! - LT

The course includes:

  • 4 on-demand video lessons - presented by Michael King
  • lifetime access to the videos, notes and interactive class
  • flexible classes - join and learn when and where you like
  • downloadable lesson notes
  • practical perennial meadow design projects (with tutor feedback available)
  • access on your mobile, PC, Mac or laptop
  • small interactive online classroom - chat online to students from around the world and share your creative ideas

Time to complete the perennial meadow garden design course:

Every student is different but in general we think the whole course will take around 13 hours 55 minutes to complete including:

  • Video lessons: 1 hours 55 minutes in total
  • Course notes: 30 minutes per lesson
  • Your planting design projects: at least 2 hours per lesson
  • Interactive classroom time: 15 minutes per lesson
  • Tutor feedback review (Expert level): 15 minutes per lesson

You'll need:

You don't need ay special equipment, but you will be making lists of plants and sketches of garden designs. This course is suitable for all levels of gardeners from beginners to professional gardeners who want to learn more about the specialist horticulture and garden design skills to create a perennial meadow.

 

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Lessons

What You’ll Learn

Explore the lessons and topics covered across the course.

In this lesson we will define the perennial meadow and it's place it within the history of the use of perennials in gardens over the last hundred years. Naturalistic planting will be explained and contrasted with the alternatives available to contemporary gardeners and designers. The New Perennial Movement and the manner in which perennial meadows can bring the same aims within the confines of a domestic garden will be illuminated.
We will focus entirely on theme plants, the fundamental building blocks of the perennial meadow. You will learn what characteristics are important when selecting plants to use in your schemes and understand the very best perennials for seasonal interest.
We will look at complementary plants and illustrate how important they are in adding variety, local interest and extending the effective season of planting schemes. We look at how to calculate the number of plants needed to realize a scheme and conclude by reviewing a scheme in detail to fully understand how the system works as a whole.
In this lesson we will look at how to design garden spaces using perennial meadows. We learn how to place discrete units of planting to help organize the outdoor space, and how to introduce structure to the planting schemes themselves. Lastly, we cover all of the practical aspects of creating such a garden feature: site preparation; propagation of plants; planting up methodology; mulching; watering; maintenance and the long term development of schemes.
Learning options

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Expert
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A guided learning experience with expert support, feedback and recognised outcomes.

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Peer
£45.00

Learn alongside others with a collaborative, flexible learning experience.

  • On-demand Lessons Videos & Notes
  • Collaborative Classroom Chat
  • Message Classmates Directly
  • Small Classroom Size
  • Lifetime Access
COURSE TUTOR

Michael King

Michael King Portrait

Michael King is a Senior at Kew Gardens botanist, designer and author. For the past twenty years Michael has lived in the Netherlands where he, writes, designs and gardens.
Flowering perennials, ornamental grasses and tulips are now Michael’s specialities having written many books on these subjects as well as numerous gardening articles on subjects as diverse as annual flowers, garden design and the life and work of other professional garden designers for many international garden magazines. His first two books, written jointly with Piet Oudolf, revealed how to use ornamental grasses and other perennials in naturalistic gardens, a popular trend in Continental Europe.

For more information about Michael see his web blog at www.perennialmeadows.com

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Reviews

What Learners Say

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5.00

“It is extremely beneficial to have feedback on your own understanding of the topics and to have input on the detail required in an answer. Learning with Experts has been a really good experience.”

Bronwyn
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“Outstanding content - I have gone back into the course videos many times and had many hours worth of incredible insight even before doing the assignments, which have forced me to really think about the experts' guidance.”

David
5.00

“The course has given me lots of tips and ideas. It was helpful being able to speak to others in the class about assignments and the feedback from the expert was very inspiring and has given me the confidence to try new things in my own garden.”

Helen
5.00

“I would not hesitate to recommend Learning with Experts for the RHS Level 2 Certificate. They provided thorough, comprehensive study materials alongside each individual video lesson presented by highly regarded experts in the field of horticulture, who are also engaging communicators."

Amanda
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Our online classroom is designed to help you learn from experts in a collaborative, social environment alongside a small group of learners.

Each lesson combines expert-led videos with optional assignments, giving you the opportunity to apply what you’ve learned and share your work with others. You can take part in ongoing discussions, ask questions, exchange feedback, and learn from a community of like-minded people from around the world.

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Courses are designed to fit around your schedule, allowing you to learn at your own pace. Each lesson video is typically 30–40 minutes, and we recommend around an hour for each assignment.

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The Expert option includes everything in Peer, plus personalised assignment feedback, direct messaging with your expert tutor, and a certificate of completion.

With the Expert option, you can interact directly with your tutor throughout the course. You’ll typically have one week per lesson to ask questions and receive feedback on your assignments, with as much interaction as you need during that time.

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