Taught by Piet Oudolf & Dr Noel Kingsbury
Piet Oudolf Vlinderhof Garden
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Course overview
Join master plantsman and landscape designer Piet Oudolf and horticulturalist Dr Noel Kingsbury on a tour of Vlinderhof Garden (designed by Piet Oudolf).
In this short course you'll learn Piet's key planting design principles and investigate how Piet Oudolf's planting design appears to break a fundamental rule of design – 'less is more'. We'll try to crack this conundrum together.
The course was filmed in this Dutch garden just at the end of summer - just as summer's flowering tips over to autumnal colour and winter seed heads, which will help us to understand how Piet's plant selection works in garden designs throughout the seasons.
Alongside you'll understand how the planting schemes can be applied on a large or a small scale (from huge public gardens to your own garden) and learn how to appreciate the consistently natural look and feel of the plant varieties Piet has chosen.
We'll also look at how the artistic principle of tonal depth in your planting design and how to achieve this in your garden using light and dark.
The Vlinderhof Garden includes over 100 plants, and we'll look at how Piet pulls together this number of plant varieties. We'll also see how the plants are used for three themes throughout the garden - Key Plants, Companion Plants and Surprises.
You'll understand how to choose Key Plants for their long season of good structure and these plants are repeated creating a strong sense of rhythm and visual unity throughout the garden design.
You'll be guided through the garden plant to see how other plant varieties are added for additional impact, even in small numbers, to keep up interest and create surprises.
Plus this course includes an overview of the founding of the Vlinderhof Garden and essential maintenance tasks performed throughout the seasons by the garden's volunteers.
You'll learn:
- How to apply planting design principles on small or large scale gardens
- Choosing plants for seasonal structure
- Creating planting surprises
- Garden maintenance tasks
Time to complete this planting design course:
Every student is different but in general we think the whole course will take around 4 hours to complete including:
- Video lesson: 40 minutes
- Course notes: 50 minutes
- Assignment: at least 2 hours
- Interactive classroom time: 15 minutes
- Tutor feedback review (Expert level): 15 minutes
You'll need:
You don't need any special equipment, but you will be creating your own plant list and garden design.
The course is suitable for all levels - beginners to garden designers or horticulture professionals who want to learn from a master plantsman.
The course includes:
- 1 on-demand video lesson - presented by Piet Oudolf and Dr Noel Kingsbury
- lifetime access to the video, notes and interactive class
- flexible classes - join and learn when and where you like
- downloadable lesson notes
- practical (optional) planting project
- access on your mobile, PC, Mac or laptop
- small interactive online classroom chat online to students from around the world
- Continued Professional Development (CPD) accredited for 4 hours (Expert version)
Ready to get started?
Just add the course to your basket above - choose the 'Expert' option for personal feedback from Noel on your Piet Oudolf inspired garden design and questions.
Any questions? Contact us by clicking on the orange speech symbol - we'd love to hear from you.
Watch course trailer
Lesson summary
Key planting design principles
Choose how you want to learn
Expert-level
Develop your learning further with marked assignments and personal tuition:
- Start the course whenever you like
- Tutor access for personalised assignment feedback & coaching
- Certificate of completion and CPD learning hours
- Online classroom with up to 20 classmates
- Lessons with expert videos & notes
- Group chat & direct message with tutor & classmates
- Lifetime access to videos, notes & classroom
Peer-level
Get the most from shared knowledge and community study:
- Start course whenever you like
- Practise what you learn with your peers
- Online classroom with up to 20 classmates
- Lessons with videos & notes
- Course assignments
- Group chat & direct message classmates
- Lifetime access to videos, notes & classroom
Why choose Learning with Experts?
Frequently asked questions
What’s the difference between PEER and EXPERT options?
At Peer and Expert level, you get access to the same core content and features:
- Video lesson tutorials led by your expert tutor
- Downloadable lesson notes
- Option to practise what you learn with lesson assignments
- Group learning within an online interactive classroom of up to 20 classmates
- Lifetime access to videos, notes and classroom
If you choose Expert level, you get all of the above plus the following:
- Personalised assignment feedback and coaching from your expert tutor
- Opportunity to interact with your expert tutor through a private messaging system
- Certificate of completion.
What is an online classroom?
Our online classroom has been developed to allow you to learn from our experts in a sociable environment alongside up to 20 other students. After each video tutorial led by your expert, you will be encouraged to practice what you have learned with optional assignments - these can be seen by the other students in your class, who are free to share their own thoughts and questions with you.
You will be encouraged to take part in an ongoing class discussion where you can discuss ideas, post images or work, and comment on each other’s assignments. It’s a great way to learn from other like-minded people who share your passion from all over the world.
This means not only do you benefit from people who are outstanding in their field, but also from a close-knit group of like-minded people whom you can learn alongside. Group learning has shown to greatly improve not just the experience of studying, but also how well you retain the knowledge, and we have built our classroom experience around this fact.
When can I start my course and how long will it take?
You can start your course any time within 12 months after receipt of your purchase confirmation email. Once you start, you’ll have lifetime access — meaning you can revisit the lesson videos and notes whenever you want.
Our courses are designed so that you can study at your own pace, some prefer to binge learn while others like to spread their studying over a longer period of time - it’s completely up to you. To give you a rough time frame, each lesson video is approximately 30-40 minutes long, and we recommend that you spend around an hour on each assignment.
How often can I speak with the Expert?
If you opt for the Expert version of your course, the time you have to interact with your tutor is limited to course length. You will have one week per lesson to chat to your tutor and to have your assignments marked, and during this period you can ask them as many questions as you would like.
To find out the length of each course, head to the product page and look at the Course outline to see how many lessons it contains. e.g. a four lesson course assumes that you will have completed the assignments within four weeks.
Your tutor interaction period will start as soon as you enter the classroom. If you find that you are struggling to complete the assignments in the allocated time or you wish to put this function on hold, just get in contact with one of the team via the support button and we will help you out.
Support and full FAQs
If you need any help with a course, be it one you’ve started already, or one you are looking to purchase, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our Support email address, or view the full FAQ’s here.
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Awards and accreditations
