Our Short Courses

We are delighted to offer an exciting range of short courses for aspiring practitioners, established designers and interested amateurs. All our short courses will be based at the Yorkshire School of Garden Design bespoke new teaching studio above Alistair Baldwin’s design offices in Ripon North Yorkshire. We’ve brought together some of the leading lights of the garden design world to deliver engaging, up-to-date and fun learning experiences, right in the heart of Yorkshire. All courses will be lead by Alistair and his design team, with input from special guest speakers hand-picked from Alistair’s international network of friends and contacts in the industry.

For those who wish to travel and stay in local accommodation to attend one of our short courses please let us know by getting in touch and we will provide information on places to stay.

Tailoring your learning

We’ve designed our suite of short courses to appeal to both budding and practicing garden designers. You may wish to take on new skills or hone those you already have, and our range of courses seeks to cover topics that we feel are valuable to anyone active in or interested in becoming involved in the world of garden design. In Design your own Garden we also have a course for those who aren’t planning on entering this great profession but would like to spend some time in the company of successful designers creating a wonderful concept and plan for their own garden.

There may be a particular aspect of garden design that you would like to focus on, in which case taking a few themed courses will help you target that area of learning and help you grow your business. These are a few suggestions of grouped courses:

Improve your planting design skills with

An Introduction to Designing with Plants
February 11^th, 12^th, and 13^th
Creating Seasonality and Layering in Planting Schemes
June 10^th, 11^th, and 12^th
Planting Plans and Specifications
July 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th

Refine your presentation skills with

Geometry in Garden Design
March 4^th and 5^th
Sketchup for Garden Designers
March 18^th, 19^th, and 20^th
Freehand Sketching for Garden Designers
April 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th
Graphics for Garden Designers
May 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th

Increase your technical confidence with

Planting Plans and Specifications
July 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th
Construction Design, Drawings and Specifications
July 29^th, 30^th, and 31^st

If you’re looking to train as a garden designer taking our full suite of short courses (with the exception of Design your own Garden) will give you a knowledge base which will enable you to set up as a designer and start taking on commissions. We offer deals on taking two or more courses, which are set out below.

Learn more and save money

If you’d like to join us for more than one of our short courses our Learn and Save deals are for you. The more you learn the more you save.

Book on any of our short courses and receive £20 off our Garden Photography Masterclass with Clive Nichols
Book on Design your own Garden and receive a £30 discount on any other short course and £20 off our Garden Photography Masterclass with Clive Nichols
Book on two of our courses priced at £535 + VAT for £1020 + VAT, giving a saving of £50 + VAT
Book on three of our courses priced at £535 + VAT for £1485 + VAT, giving a saving of £40 + VAT per course.
Book on all of our of short courses (not including Design your own Garden) for £5000 + VAT, giving a saving of £325 + VAT
All those who book on our in-person SketchUp for Garden Designers course will receive a link to download our online version of the course, worth £39.99 + VAT

Please use the course booking form to tell us which courses you are reserving your place on and use these deals to calculate the total price.