21 January 1994 Garden Design Summer School Will Guide You to Value-Added Properties and Enhanced Living Space

The value-enhancing wisdom of carefully planning a property's garden is often overlooked by good, keen green-fingered Kiwis, says Christchurch landscape architect Jenny Moore, who will be conducting a week-long summer school in garden design at Lincoln University in February.

"A well planned garden definitely enhances the 'living space' of a property and certainly adds value to what is probably everyone's biggest single investment, their home," says Ms Moore.

"For all the blessings of climate, space, soils and plant variety, it is surprising that New Zealand has no strong history of garden design.

"That's not to say New Zealanders don't have the vision  -  through overseas garden tours, television and books we're now exposed to some of the best gardens in the world and have had our eyes opened to all sorts of possibilities. The problem seems to be not knowing how to tum that vision into reality on one's own section.

"To put this right the hands-on, 'how to' aspect of garden design will be very central to the course."

Participants will be given some of the basic principles of garden design then taken through the whole process of developing plans for a garden area. Experience with both town and country sites will be provided and course members will choose whether they would like to do a town or country garden. Everyone will then develop a set of plans for their chosen site and these will be presented at the end of the course.

Topics to be covered include setting objectives, surveying the site, concept development, planning design, construction and preparing a landscape plan.

The text for the course is "Garden design - a New Zealand Guide" edited by the Head of Lincoln University's Landscape Architecture Department, Simon Swaffield.

Dates for the summer school are 14-18 February, the venue is the Landscape Architecture Studio at Lincoln University and the contact for registration details is Betty Shore of Lincoln University's Centre for Continuing Education, phone (03) 3252-811.

Ian Collins, Journalist, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand.