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Masterclass with Thomas Rainer

NEW: The Roots and All Podcast with Thomas Rainer, hosted by Sarah Wilson. Listen here.

A Designer’s Guide to Creating Lush, Layered Planting

This bespoke masterclass is for Designers, Landscape Architects, Horticulturists, Professional Gardeners and advanced gardeners.  Join Landscape Architect, author, and teacher, Thomas Rainer, for a day exclusively focused on the tips, tricks, and design strategies to create more layered, beautiful plantings. Whether your goal is increased resiliency, lower maintenance ecological plantings, or more intensely floriferous perennial borders, the lessons of this day will equip you with a broader toolkit of planting design skills.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn why conventional approaches to horticulture have failed, and why our plantings need to embrace more diversity.

• Learn how to create waves of flower colour from April to October by combining different types of plants.

• Learn how to create self-sustaining populations that are resilient to changing times.

• Learn how to frame mixed plantings to increase their aesthetic value. 

• Learn how plants compete and how to use this knowledge to create more stable plant combinations.

• Learn tips and tricks to manage dynamic plantings over time.  

Morning Session: The Big Picture, A New Paradigm in Planting Design

Rebuilding Abundance: A Designer’s Guide to Developing Dynamic Plant Communities

This groundbreaking talk presents a powerful alternative to traditional horticulture—designed plantings that function like naturally-occurring plant communities. Learn how plants fit together in nature and how to use this knowledge to create landscapes that are resilient, beautiful, and diverse. As practical as it is inspiring, this talk explores a new synthesis of ecology and horticulture - resulting in an intentionally designed and managed community where population dynamics are encouraged within an aesthetic framework.

Afternoon Designer’s Workshop

This workshop is specifically tailored to equiping designers with the tools to create layered planting plans. Learn how to develop plant palettes that evoke the wild, categorise plants by functional relationships for quick designs, develop graphic strategies to represent layered planting on plans, and install plantings on site.

About Thomas Rainer

Thomas Rainer is a registered landscape architect, teacher, and author living in Arlington, Virginia. Thomas, a leading voice in ecological landscape design, has designed landscapes for the U.S. Capitol grounds, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, and The New York Botanical Garden, as well as over 100 gardens from Maine to Florida. He is a celebrated public speaker who has garnered acclaim for his passionate presentations to audiences across the U.S. and in Europe. Thomas serves as a Principal for the landscape architectural and consulting firm Phyto Studio in Washington, D.C.

Thomas received his Masters Degree from the University of Georgia. Thomas has worked for the firms Oehme, van Sweden and Associates, and was most recently a Principal at the landscape architectural and planning firm, Rhodeside & Harwell. He has a broad range of experience in project types ranging from intimate residential gardens to expansive estates, rooftop gardens, botanical gardens, large-scale green infrastructure design & implementation, and national memorials. His work has been featured in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Landscape Architecture Magazine, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and Architectural Digest.

While passionate about design and focusing on details, Thomas is a specialist in applying innovative planting concepts to create ecologically-functional designed landscapes. His recent work focuses on the artful interpretation of wild plant communities into designed plantings that thrive in the context of towns and cities.  He also continues to love working on residential gardens, enjoying the intimate collaboration with clients and creating spaces. 

Thomas teaches planting design for the George Washington University Landscape Design program. His recently published book co-authored with Claudia West, Planting in a Post-Wild World, was released in fall 2015 from Timber Press and was selected by the American Horticultural Society as one of the 2016 books of the year.

Course Leader: Thomas Rainer

Date: Saturday, 18 January 2020

Time: Registration from 9.15am. To be seated by 9.45am. Start: 09.55am.  Finish: 4.00pm - 4.30pm (or thereabouts)

Venue: Regent’s University London, Regent’s Park Campus, Inner Circle London NW1 4NS (a 10 minute walk from Baker Street Underground Station - see Regent’s University website for directions by road, underground or air).

Cost:  Early Bird Discount: £80.00 + £5.32 online processing fee (discounted to £60.00 + £4.04 online processing fee for students with valid ID). Early bird discount available on limited number of tickets and expires on 30 November 2019 whichever is the sooner, after which £90.00 + £5.96 online processing fee (discounted to £70.00 + £4.68 online processing fee for students with valid ID*)

Payment:  To securely pay online with a debit/credit card or via PayPal, click pay online. If you would prefer to pay via BACS or other method, please contact us.  Please note that we do not take credit card bookings over the phone.

Who
Open to all, in particular, Garden and Landscape Designers, Landscape Architects, Horticulturists, Ecologists, Professional Gardeners - anyone with a passion for plants.

What to bring
Please bring your preferred form of note taking.   See also catering.

Catering

There is a wide variety of food and drink available for purchase around Baker Street Underground Station and along Marylebone Road should you wish to buy tea/coffee/lunch including Pret, Starbucks, Costa, Itsu, Tesco Express. There is also an onsite cafeteria for a selection of hot and cold food and a separate small Starbucks onsite. Please note onsite facilities will be in high demand with the possibility of long queues. You are welcome to bring your own lunch and flask. However, due to the University’s regulations, you might be asked to eat these off-site.

Directions
Tuke Hall, Regent’s University London, Regent’s Park Campus, Inner Circle London NW1 4NS (a 10 minute walk from Baker Street Underground Station - see Regent’s University website for directions by road, underground or air).

Cost
Early Bird Discount: £80.00 + £5.32 online processing fee (discounted to £60.00 + £4.04 online processing fee for students with valid ID). Early bird discount on limited number of tickets and expires on 30 November 2019 whichever is the sooner, after which £90.00 + £5.96 online processing fee (discounted to £70.00 + £4.68 online processing fee for students with valid ID*).

*Students: please confirm you have student ID(s) for each attendee booked, and forward a copy of your valid student ID(s) to gillian@gilliangoodson.com following check-out to be confirmed on the course. Please bring valid student ID on the day of the course for checking. Please see terms and conditions below.

Other
Our sincerest thanks to London College of Garden Design and London Stone for assisting us in the promotion of this masterclass.

A donation will be made to Perennial, the Gardeners’ Royal Benevolent Society in support of their incredible work. Perennial is the UK’s only charity dedicated to helping people who work in Horticulture when times are tough.

Terms and conditions
Bookings are taken on a first come, first served basis.  We are not able to give refunds for cancellations.  However, you are welcome to nominate someone to take your place provided you have notified us of their name and contact details prior to commencement of the course. We reserve the right to cancel any course at any time.  In the rare event that we need to cancel a course, you will be contacted and given the option to receive a full refund of your payment or transfer to another course of the same value, subject to availability. 

*Where a student rate is selected, proof of a valid student ID must be sent to us via email (see contact information) prior to us being able to confirm your booking.  One student ID required per attendee.  We reserve the right to refuse admission on the course should proof of valid ID not be supplied prior to the commencement of the course.  A refund will be given for the course fee paid less an administration charge of £10. By registering on this course you have read and agree to our Disclaimer and Privacy statement.