HNC Garden Design

This course gives you hands-on horticultural knowledge as well as refined design skills.

Location: Edinburgh
Study mode: Part time (2 years), full time (1 year)
Subject area: Horticulture
Start date: September 2024
Agency code: 192W

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Course overview

Specially designed to give you the knowledge to enter the garden design profession, this course covers a wide range of skills, including learning to communicate with clients and other professionals, and how to organise, manage and design construction projects.

Employment opportunities with HNC Garden Design include working for landscape companies and horticultural enterprises, and often you'll get to provide design input into their projects.

Some students with previous relevant experience have gone straight into designing gardens and setting up their own business. Many have returned to take more advanced HND modules while working.

Virtual Experience

Take a look around the SRUC Virtual Experience for lots of great student videos and examples of what it’s like to study our courses, along with campus and facility tours.

SRUC holds open days regularly. Visit our listings page for details of our up-coming events.

Entry requirements

Two Highers (CC), preferably to include a science subject or Geography.

National 5 (A-C) or equivalent pass in English and Maths.

Alternative entry qualifications, like a related National Certificate, are also accepted.

Applicants with a mature attitude seeking a change in career will be assessed individually.

What you'll learn

Working in a studio setting, you'll learn about garden design through using real, guided projects with real clients and covering a range of garden styles.

Visits to plant nurseries, hard landscape suppliers and the Botanic Gardens (Glasgow or Edinburgh) will help you develop plant identification skills. You'll also be able to take part in practical horticulture tasks.

Example modules include:

Design Process and Composition in the Landscape
Landscape Graphics
Designing Gardens
Planting Design
Fundamentals of Landscape Surveying

Student experience

Lynn Hill came to garden design with a varied background, having previously worked as an art tutor and a project manager. After having her first child, she studied part-time to build a career she loved with the flexibility she needed.

“One of the most positive things about the course was that you were able to dip in," she said. "Because I had that flexibility it worked. If I hadn’t been able to do the course part time then I wouldn’t be a garden designer now.”

Lynn has now set up her own business, is on the board of Gardening Scotland and has worked with renowned garden designer Juliet Sargeant at the Royal Chelsea Flower Show.

I’m always pushing myself outside of my comfort zone and it's one of the reasons why I have a successful business."

Lynn Hill

Fees and funding

Eligible full-time students studying HNC Garden Design should apply to SAAS for fees and funding. A student loan is also available to help students with living costs.

If you do not apply, you will have to pay your fees yourself and if you have studied at HNC/D/degree level before SAAS may not pay your fees.

More information about funding your course

Find out more about your payment options for this course in our fees and funding section

Fees & funding

Other possible routes to funding

Care experienced bursary: There are a number of bursaries available to care-experienced students studying full time. Find out more from our student funding teams at: registryfunding@SRUC.ac.uk
Discretionary fund
- SAAS student bursary
- Care Experienced Accommodation Grant
- Childcare
- Going further bursary
- RUK bursary (for students from outside Scotland)
- The Gregor Thomas Royan Lamb Bursary for Future Farmers
- Centenary bursary
- Change your path bursary

HNC Garden Design

Apply now