Improving the landscape design skills of North Carolina green industry professionals.

A 2-day hands-on landscape design workshop was presented to landscape design professionals in the North Carolina green industry who had never received formal training in the design process. All attendees were satisfied, significantly increased their knowledge of landscape design, and adopted key strategies for improving their designs and design skills. Green Industry Professionals Need Help The population of North Carolina has grown dramatically in recent years, increasing by over 2.5 million since 1990 (N.C. Rural Economic Development Center, 2005). This has fueled construction and resulted in job opportunities in the area of landscape design that have far outpaced the availability of trained landscape designers in the green industry. To fill this niche, many lawn and landscape care professionals, nursery stock growers, and inexperienced newcomers have begun designing landscapes without possessing formal design training. A 2-day workshop providing formal training in the landscape design process was offered for horticulture professionals. The objectives of the program were to: Teach and model the elements of the landscape design process, 1. Provide hands-on design experience, guided and critiqued by instructors, 2. Encourage interaction, peer critique and the use of design vocabulary, and 3. Provide students with professional practice in presentation of their designs to clients. 4. Two separate sets of approximately 20 professionals attended a 2-day workshop in July 2006 and 2007. All 40 participants were in the landscape design profession, and some owned businesses that routinely designed and installed landscapes. Only one participant out of 40 had received formal training in landscape design prior to the workshop. The instructors consisted of three faculty in the Department of Horticultural Science at North Carolina State with degrees in Landscape Architecture, and two graduate students in the landscape design program at North Carolina State. Over the 2-day workshops, instructors and graduate students presented PowerPoint lectures, displayed rendered drawings as examples, and then worked with each participant individually to guide student integration of the elements of design into their personal landscape design processes. The elements of the landscape design process presented at the 2-day workshop were: Verbal Communication • Professional Practice • Landscape Evaluation • Base Map Preparation • Improving The Landscape Design Skills of North Carolina Green Industry Professionals 12/18/09 06:49:14