Creating a Garden Theme

Learn how to create a garden theme!

Learn about different garden themes, including formal, natural, rainforest, coastal, cottage, oriental, Mediterranean, and eclectic gardens, and how to create them in this fully self-paced and automated 20-hour short course.

Lesson Structure

There are 11 lessons in this course:

1. Formal Gardens
   • Elements of the formal garden
   • Simple formal gardens
   • Formal areas
   • Review what you have been learning
2. Natural Gardens
   • How to develop a natural garden
   • Natural tools
   • Review what you have been learning
3. Rainforest Gardens
   • Review what you have been learning
4. Coastal Gardens
   • Other strategies for growing coastal plants
   • Hardy seaside plants
   • Review what you have been learning
5. Cottage Gardens
   • Principles of cottage garden design
   • Cottage garden plants
   • Review what you have been learning
6. Late Victorian/Edwardian Gardens
   • How to create your own edwardian style garden
   • Edwardian features
   • Review what you have been learning
7. Oriental Gardens
   • Chinese gardening
   • Japanese gardening
   • Traditional oriental garden plants
   • Japanese gardens
   • Use of rocks
   • Other features
   • Review what you have been learning
8. Mediterranean Gardens
   • What is a Mediterranean garden?
   • Review what you have been learning
9. Mexican Style Gardens
   • How Mexican gardens involved
   • How to reflect the plants
   • Review what you have been learning
10. Minimalist Landscape Design
    • Designing a minimalist garden
    • Some variations on minimalist gardens
    • Review what you have been learning
11. Eclectic Gardens
    • Ideas for creating an eclectic garden
    • Review what you have been learning
    • Final assessment

How Your Course Works

1. Enrol any time. Your enrolment will be processed usually within a day or two; and during business hours, often within an hour.
2. You will then receive an email explaining the course and how to access to a study guide, and our help desk. The guide contains both an audio and written explanation of how the course can be undertaken in a way where you can choose to emphasise or de-emphasise aspects of your learning, according to where your greatest interest or needs may lay.
3. You then follow the study guide, reading and undertaking varied learning tasks, designed by professional educators to broaden and deepen your understanding of the subject. These tasks can vary from practicals to research and more.
4. If and when you need to, you can contact our academic staff via a help desk. Emails are answered every working day.
5. On concluding each lesson, you are presented with a series of automated self assessment questions, to review and reinforce your learning experience.
6. On conclusion of all lessons, you are presented with a major online exam comprising numerous questions reflecting the scope of all lessons.
7. The exam is assessed in our online training system immediately as it is submitted; and if you achieve a result of 60% or more, you are given access to download a “Certificate of Completion”. This certificate carries your name (extracted from the original enrolment order) together with a current date, and carrying endorsements from this school and the ACS Global Partners Network.

Everything is automatic, but if you do need help at any point along your journey of discovery there is a help desk, with real people who have real expertise – only an email away!

Themed Gardens are Better Gardens

Gardens can be as varied in style as clothes, foods or anything else. Some gardens reflect the country or region they come from, while others can be associated with the geography or something else. Whether formal or informal, modern or traditional, gardens built around a theme will be stronger and more coherent than ones that are not.