Landscape Designer Requirements

Formal Education

• As the landscape design field grows, a number of schools are offering bachelor and master's degrees or certificate programs in landscape design. Some landscape design diploma programs are offered as distance programs. For example, the Stratford Career Institute offers a long-distance diploma course addressing themes, such as plant types, pruning techniques, landscape design, plant selection and landscape contracting. The National Garden Club also offers a series of courses, running since 1958, training amateur gardeners in landscape design. If you have completed a bachelor's degree, George Washington University offers a master's degree program for both amateur gardeners and landscape design professionals. Instruction includes topics such as horticulture, nursery standards and creative design techniques. Students learn the principles of design, site engineering and how to use plants as materials within their design. They also learn about landscape conservation and sustainability.

Informal Training

• Landscape design remains an occupation largely learned through practical apprenticeships. One of the main tools of the contemporary landscape designer, as in other fields of architecture and design is Computer-Assisted Design. While degree programs regularly provide training in the fundamentals of landscape design, including horticultural understandings of plant life and design principles, they rarely teach the practical skills of using this software. Learning the software, whether independently or through an internship, helps prepare a landscape designer to work within a modern landscape design firm. Some community colleges offer instruction in drawing with CAD software. Multiple landscape-oriented CAD programs are available.

Certification

• Unlike landscape architects, landscape designers do not require certification to work professionally. Some opt to join the Association of Professional Landscape Designers, a professional association that awards certification nationwide. To become a certified member of the APLD, you must already be an associate and must have a minimum of 4 years of professional landscape design experience. The educational requirements are somewhat flexible, although they typically require 1 year of studying landscape design in some capacity.