Kate is now extremely busy as Creative Director for ‘A Garden Celebrated’, a new garden festival launched
this year at The Royal Garden, Highgrove. She will also be compering at the event and is thoroughly enjoying her new role. We will be inviting Kate back to teach with us in the future.
Emily Sharpe: Garden Stories
Emily has graduated from the Ten Week Garden Design Diploma Course and the Ten Week Planting Design Diploma. She has established and runs Garden Stories and designs gardens inspired by people - helping her clients create their own garden stories.
Emily has won an RHS Silver-Gilt medal at the RHS Malvern Spring Festival in the Festival Garden category and this year is building one of the main show gardens there for the Ucare charity. She has also won ‘Best in Show’ at the Blenheim Palace Flower Show. Emily has also provided tuition for us and we hope to welcome her back soon.
Pippa Shennan: Earthmark Garden Design
She obtained her Garden Design qualification at The Cotswold Gardening School in 2012 and then returned more recently to study both Planting Design and Horticulture in order to obtain a Diploma. She now runs her own garden design company, Earthmark Garden Design.
This year Pippa is designing and constructing a show garden at the RHS Malvern Spring Festival, with the main theme based around the importance of noise attenuation, particularly in urban gardens.
Pippa is an Accredited Partner of the Wildflower Turf Ltd, specialising in designing, installing and maintaining wildflower meadows and planting schemes. Pippa also acts as a visiting lecturer on various courses for us.
Stacey Gibson: One Year Garden Design Diploma Course
Stacey Gibson graduated from our One Year Garden Design Diploma with a Commendation and in the same year also achieved a silver RHS medal for her Festival Show Garden at the RHS Malvern Spring Festival. Stacey is now working for Allensmore Nurseries as an Added Value Assistant.
Allensmore have a huge customer base, including Waitrose, Wyevale Garden Centres, B&Q and Homebase along with many smaller chains and independents. It's Stacey’s job to come up with new, innovative and on-trend ranges of all manner of planted containers for one and all and at a competitive price.
Her department is in charge of the entire process, from coming up with a design, creating samples, costing and collating the new ranges into catalogues so the sales team can get out there and sell them, ordering stock for the production line to checking the spec of the finished product before it is dispatched to stores. It's going to be a great experience and she is really enjoying it.
Stacey is also working with a local landscaper on future projects which require planting plans.
Nikki Hollier: Ten Week Garden Design
Best of luck to Nikki Hollier who graduated last year from our Ten Week Garden Design Course and who is building a Festival Show garden at this year’s RHS Malvern Spring Festival.
Dena Wray,
Anthea Birden and Denise Longman:
One Year Garden Design.
Congratulations on your RHS Silver medal for your Festival Show Garden at last year’s RHS Malvern Spring Festival
Lisa Burchill:
Ten Week Garden Design.
Congratulations on your RHS Silver medal for your Main Show Garden ‘Out of Darkness at last year’s RHS Malvern Spring Festival.
“After working in the NHS as a clinician for two decades, I went on to study RHS Horticultural qualifications and worked as a Horticultural Trainee in a large country garden, I wanted to explore Garden Design as a career change and chose to study at The Cotswold Gardening School in 2015.
My business Bee's Gardens based in Oxford was created to provide Garden and Planting Design with a focus on naturalistic planting and encouraging wildlife into gardens.
I have created show gardens at Blenheim Palace, RHS Tatton and in 2019 The UK Expo Garden for the Department of International Trade in Beijing, China.”
Gary Bristow: Gary Bristow Design
Gary is a graduate from the One Year Garden Design Diploma in 2018. He is an RHS award-winning garden designer and now runs a successful garden design practice.
“Completing the Garden Design Diploma with the Cotswold Gardening School gave me the
opportunity to enhance my industry skills and hone my creativity. The professional but relaxed
atmosphere at the school provided me with the knowledge and confidence to create my garden
design business.
In my previous life I worked as a graphic designer, the Cotswold Gardening School was key in
facilitating the career switch into horticulture to follow my passion. My background in art and
design strongly informs my garden design practice enabling me to provide clients with unique and
creative gardens. Working collaboratively to design outdoor spaces that truly express a client’s
personality and passions, creating beautiful lifestyle enhancing gardens.
I am currently working with clients in Bristol, the Cotswolds and Gloucestershire. My festival show
garden was awarded a RHS Gold Medal at the Malvern Spring Festival and my Macmillan Legacy
show garden was awarded a RHS Silver-Gilt medal in 2019.
Areas of particular interest for me are contemporary garden design, special gardens, gardening
for mental health, the gardens created by artists, designers and other creative people, organic
gardening, sculpture in gardens and encouraging UK gardeners to be more adventurous in using a
wider palette of plants, colour and art in their own gardens.
Recently I have contributed garden design articles for magazines, created garden graphics for
other designers and have been invited to give some garden design talks in 2020.”
“Studying at the Cotswold Gardening School was one of the best life choices I’ve made, as it’s led to a fulfilling and rewarding career in this exciting and friendly industry. Caroline was a great source of both knowledge, experience and inspiration, and the courses that I took at the school gave me solid foundations for starting my own business, Elly’s Wellies Garden Designs. I’ve completed more than fifty projects since graduating in 2016, and each job brings new challenges so I’m constantly learning and developing my skills. I’ve teamed up with a local landscaping company - Westend Landscapes - which has led to more referrals, better practical knowledge, and they’ve built many of my designs. I also write a double page spread for the Bristol Magazine each month on gardening-related topics, which has been invaluable in raising my profile in the community and advertising my business. Thank you to the Cotswold Gardening School!”
Martyn Wilson: Wilson Associates Garden Design
Award winning Garden Designer Martyn Wilson graduated from the One Year Garden Design Diploma in 2015. He established and runs Wilson Associates Garden Design, a successful and busy garden design practice and has kindly agreed to come back and do some teaching for us - watch this space.
Martyn has designed two RHS award-winning show gardens including: RHS Silver-Gilt for the ‘The Bees Knees’ supporting the Bumblebee Conservation Trust at the RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2015; (built while he was also studying on his diploma course!) and RHS Silver medal for ‘The Journey’ supporting The Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund at the RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2014. He won People’s Choice for his third show garden at Malvern and won gold at the 2017 RHS Hampton Court Flower Show.
