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Our design students are busy identifying the plants And it continues on the studio floor... In a fresh and exciting start to the new module 'Selecting Plants for Designed Landscapes', Jill Raggett gets MA students busy thinking about the life cycles of a range of collected plant specimens. Once the specimens on our tables have been arranged from the longest living perennials, like the veteran English Oak, Quercus robur , to the short lived but tenacious Annual Meadow Grass, Poa annua , Jill shows us how the variable structures and forms of plants give away their evolutionary strategies, how the climate and planting conditions can affect the longevity of species, such as the tender Banana, and how this dynamic coming and going can be choreographed into a fabulous design dance. Afterwards, it's onto the revision sheets for next week's plant knowledge test. Kelly Law WUC MA Landscape Architecture student

 MA Conversion Landscape Architecture&Garden Design and 1st year degree students are ready to dig in! In our brand new module "Ecological Principles and Planting Theory" MA conversion and 1st year students will work on their own plots  as part of a community garden project to experience soil, ecology, design and plants with Dr Jill Raggett and Charlotte Power. In the photograph students are  assessing potential sites for their Outdoor Studio spaces – there were at least 4 potential sites but eventually we settled on this one – so site analysis skills and community engagement all stared today – next week we dig!   Dr Jill Raggett Emeritus Reader in Gardens and Designed Landscapes WUC