Service: One-day GardenAdvice course + MyGardenTeam support and follow-up visits
Timeline: Course and MyGardenTeam begun in 2025; ongoing support into 2026
The situation
Marketa contacted GardenAdvice after having a garden designed and installed by other designers and contractors. Once the build was finished she felt a little in the dark about how to look after the new planting or how to develop it herself. Her two main objectives were straightforward: add more colour and structure to the perennial borders around the house, and increase the amount of fruit and veg she could reliably grow.
The solution we delivered
Marketta booked our hands-on one-day GardenAdvice course, which includes 12 months’ membership of our MyGardenTeam service. The course is taught in the client’s own garden so learning is immediately relevant, and the MyGardenTeam membership gives a year of written notes, task calendars and follow-up visits so the learning keeps working after the day itself.
From there we worked with Marquetta on a programme of follow-up support that combined short visits, targeted practical work and illustrated planting ideas from our design software.
What we did, in practice
- One-day, in-garden teaching — practical tuition in planting, pruning, and getting a veg patch working (so skills were learned in the place the client would use them). The course focus is deliberately practical and tailored to the client’s priorities.
- Follow-up visits and focused tasks — after the course we visited to work through a number of topics in more depth: fruit-tree pruning (apples and other fruit), sowing and raising seed and young plants, glasshouse work including growing melons, and hands-on border work to add structure and colour. These were delivered as short, achievable tasks so that Marquetta could keep momentum and see steady progress. Glasshouse and melon guidance is part of the practical veg/greenhouse advice we provide.
- Sowing and veg planning — we agreed on a simple crop plan and succession sowing schedule so she would get more harvests and fewer gaps. We also showed low-risk greenhouse techniques to extend the season and cropping period.
- Adding colour and structure to borders — practical planting and seasonal notes, combined with an illustrated planting proposal to show how structural plants and seasonal drifts of perennials would read through the year. One simple example: starting dahlia tubers in John Innes No.1 in the greenhouse for reliable cut flowers later in the season.
- Managing an existing wildflower meadow — Marketa already had areas of meadow and we advised on scalable management: preparing patches, reinforcing with plug planting where needed, weed control and how the meadow will naturally spread over 3–4 years to a self-sustaining wildlife area. These were scheduled into the MyGardenTeam notes so timing (autumn/spring tasks) was clear.
Bringing ideas to life with our planting-visualisation software
GardenAdvice illustration show how one of the borders could look with the addition of Allium and white Iris
To help Marketa see the effect of different plant choices we used our planting-visualisation software. The takes photographs of the garden (or a simple description), and produces clear illustrations that show how suggested plants will look through the seasons. This made the design process collaborative — we could add or remove plants and instantly update images so Marquetta could choose the colours and combinations she liked.
One of the illustrations we produced for the borders shows how drifts of alliums combined with white iris would lift late-spring and early-summer colour against the existing planting. The illustration was created from photos of Marquetta’s borders and shows the proposed plants inserted into the images so she could visualise the exact effect before we planted.
Early outcomes
2025 crop of apple with correct care such as feeding and organic pest control massively increased
- The borders now read better through the seasons thanks to the structural planting and selected drifts of colour. The visualisations made it easy for Marquetta to choose a planting scheme she felt confident about.
- The veg area and greenhouse produced a noticeably larger and more reliable crop in the first season after our practical intervention. The melon trials in the glasshouse were successful and also helped moderate glasshouse temperatures for other crops.
Why this approach worked
- Learning in the garden — the practical GardenAdvice one-day course means people learn techniques in the environment they will use.
- Structured, ongoing support — MyGardenTeam turns a single course into a year-long programme of advice, tasks and short visits so improvements stick.
- Visual decision making — our latest visualisations let clients see realistic options from actual photos of their garden, removing guesswork and speeding up decisions.
Follow Marketa’s progress through 2026
follow Marketas with their progress in the garden this year 2026 with the GardenAdvice team with click here
