A little over a year ago, I published a post here on Plantanica about turning a passion for outdoor spaces into a professional path: Top Garden Design Courses Online: Turn Your Hobby into a Career. Back then, the idea of enrolling in school to redraw my life and career map was just a quiet ambition. I kept hesitating, held back by questions about time and budget.
Everything changed in April. Deciding to give myself a meaningful birthday gift, I finally took the plunge and enrolled in a professional online diploma course. To my absolute delight, I discovered they offered monthly installment payments—a wonderful surprise that made the financial step feel completely manageable.
I officially started in April, and by June, I was fully immersed in weekly classes alongside 18 wonderful classmates. The structure keeps me wonderfully challenged: for every assignment, there is a dedicated preparatory lesson covering parallel yet distinct topics, followed by history of garden design, drawing techniques or drainage solutions. All assignments call for hand-drawn plans and essays.
Rediscovering the joy and excitement of being a student has been invigorating. Digging deeper and researching extensively for each assignment is pure happiness. What I love most is that, despite how advanced digital technology has become, the academy still places a heavy emphasis on classic hand-drawing. Even on my busiest days, I make it a point to sit down and sketch at least a few landscape elements.
here is one of my drawing for the assignment:
Are you thinking about taking the leap yourself? If you are sitting on the fence, here are a few honest tips from my own journey:
Motivation is Key: The school provides all the foundational knowledge you will ever need, but your drive to learn and self-improve has to come from within.
Prepare to See Differently: Get ready for a total shift in perception. Once you start learning the principles, you will never look at a garden the same way again.
Do You Love to Sketch? Even though digital software will eventually enter the picture, building those foundational hand-drawing skills early on is invaluable.
Evaluate Your Time: To be transparent, starting right at the beginning of summer meant I couldn’t move through my assignments as fast as I wanted. Summer turned out much busier than anticipated, so plan your timeline carefully.
If you ever catch yourself wondering, “Why on earth did I sign up for this?”—and trust me, we all do—let me share a quick moment that changed everything for me.
During one of our live classes, our instructor handed us a basic site plan and gave us just ten minutes to sketch a quick design incorporating specific elements like a seating area, a water feature, and a children’s play zone. In my mind, my layout was the only logical solution. Where else could the water feature possibly go? I assumed everyone would come up with something nearly identical.
When the ten minutes were up and my classmates shared their sketches, every single design was entirely different. In that instant, it hit me: there was a unique vision that only I could bring to life, a garden that only I could design in my own voice.
So, if you feel that quiet spark of a garden designer waiting to bloom inside you, don’t put it off.
Warmly,
Melis