Gardens are a great resource for educational activities -
Gardens need custudy by well trained people

Gardens are rooted in history, their design and evolution is based on common principles and changing fashions as well as on specific resources and ideas. Plants make parks and gardens a place of seasonal growth and decline. Gardens are settings for creative work and featured in many works of art. All this and much more can be experienced in a garden.

To facilitate such learning experience EGHN will - based on a comprehensive survey of best practice and an analysis of existing deficits - propagate existing and create new teaching materials and concepts for training courses. This approach of both "learning about gardens" and "learning from gardens" will range from plant identification sheets to the use of new technologies for mapping a garden and its elements and sharing such data with students in other areas or countries. While such cooperation will be virtual, there are also plans for a summer event bringing together school children from three countries.

In addition to the above, "learning for gardens" is essential to maintain and enhance the qualities of parks and gardens and to use their resources for the satisfaction of their visitors and for sustainable development. Training courses for graduates and other professionals are manifold, but EGHN identified the need and demand for additional offers to respond to the changing perception and use of parks and gardens and to support the creative debate about their future. Such curricula and a model for a Summer School managed jointly by EGHN, its anchor gardens and universities will also be worked out, implemented and evaluated within this key action.

Main responsibility: Somerset County Council
Major supporting partners: Stiftung Schloss Dyck, CRT Pays de la Loire, National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens

Contact Person: Birgit Hughes
BHughes@somerset.gov.uk