5 Minute Plant Expert
Online Course
Learn how to know which plants will grow where
Learn Key Plant Characteristics
You can often tell what growing conditions plants needs just by looking at their leaves
Choose The Right Plants For Your Garden
Learn the keys to successfully placing plants in the right conditions for them to grow well
Learn How To Analyse Your Garden
Knowing your garden's soil type and conditions will enable you to choose the right plants
- no complex software required
- suitable for complete beginners
- methods taught work anywhere in the world
- suitable for any type of planting scheme
- 100% online - works with computers & mobile devices
Plants will tell you exactly what conditions they need to flourish, if you know what to look for…
Plants do talk to us. Not with language as you and I know it, but with their own ‘special’ communications. By understanding a small amount of key clues you can glean a wealth of information that will help you understand plants, their needs, how to have healthy specimens that don’t die on you!
Does this sound familiar?
- Purchased lots of plants and had them die on you in weeks, or worse days?
- Have trouble knowing what conditions your plants need and where best to plant them in your garden?
- Tried trial and error plant purchases which have cost you a lot of time and money with fatalities?
It doesn't have to be so difficult...
Books, magazines and TV make learning about plants overly complicated. Some information sources are better than others but they all make it hard work and not at all easy.
Trying to learn hundreds of different plants and their growing conditions is hard and time consuming.
It doesn’t have to be like that though. You may think that it will take years to learn about plants (horticulturalists will certainly help you to think that) but it doesn’t have to.
Plants have evolved over the years to grow in a vast array of conditions. Plants that grow in certain environments tend to share key characteristics.
By learning a handful of these characteristics, you’ll be able to instantly tell what a plant needs just by looking at it. You don’t even need to know a plant’s name to choose the right location for it.
See what's inside the course...
5 Minute Plant Expert Mini-Course
When it comes to choosing plants, the good news is you don’t need as much knowledge as you think to be able to choose the right ones for your garden.
By knowing a few basic characteristics to look for, you’ll know exactly which plants to grow where. Everyone will be impressed by your ‘Plant Whispering’ skills by the time you’ve read this in depth guide.
5 Minute Plant Expert Course Videos
1) Which Plants Will Suit Your Soil? – This video shows you how to tell if your soil is acid or alkaline by looking at the plants growing in your neighbourhood.
2) Which Plants Will Suit Your Climate? – This video shows you how to know which plants are best suited to suit your climate, by showing you how to identify key clues in plants’ leaves.
3) Which Plants Suit Your Aspect? – In this video, Rachel will show you how to know which plants are best suited for sun and which for shade.
4) How to Analyse Your Garden – In this video, Rachel will show you how to analyse the conditions of your soil so that you can make sure you choose plants that are suited to it.
5) Plant Expert Summary – this video is a quick re-cap of the main principles covered in all the other videos.
6) Plant Picking Software Demo – in this video Rachel will demonstrate how to use a free, online, plant choosing tool, that will help you choose the right plants for your conditions by colour, size, growing conditions, etc.
To help give you further inspiration for your garden, there are a selection of plant photograph galleries, that are included with the courses.
Gift Purchases
If you wish to give the course as a gift, after purchase email us the details of the recipient and we will send them the course on the date you specify.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. Absolutely not. The course is designed to show both complete beginners and experienced gardeners a really simple design method that can be used to transform any size, shape or style of garden, quickly and easily.
The course is 100% online, with immediate, lifetime access. So you can view it any time that is convenient for you, as many times as you want.
Yes. The techniques shown in the course work on any garden, anywhere! The characteristics don't change, just the plant varieties do.
You will definitely learn something new. The principles I teach in the 5 Minute Plant Expert are ones that I learned growing up with a plant expert for a father so what you’ll learn in the course will enhance your existing knowledge.
That will depend on how much time you devote to it each week and your individual learning style. As a rough guide, the 5 Minute Plant Expert could be completed over 1 weekend, but I would recommend you take at least 2 weekends to allow time for the information to be fully absorbed.
No. The course has been primarily designed for homeowners who wish to improve their knowledge without needing to attend a college course for weeks on end, so there is no qualification. Only our Great Garden Formula course has the option for a diploma (which this course is included with as a bonus).
You can ask Rachel any questions you have about the course material in the members' area of the website.
If you have a question that hasn't been answered above, please email us here.
See what our students say about the course
"Hi Rachel. Thank you so much for the incredibly valuable amount of work and passion you share through your design courses. It is absolutely amazing!
I knew how I wanted to use our garden, it simply felt impossible and I just didn't know how to achieve it. I needed the right approach and a new perspective, and your knowledge, passion and expertise made it possible. I found the courage to try myself on the board and it has been an immensily satisfactory and rewarding experience.
Thank you for being such a good teacher and for making approachable and....fun, what others made so complicated and scary!"
"Wow. I've gone through everything now and have spent hours of rainy weekends and Christmas break planning, sketching and even getting my watercolours out for the first time in years – this whole course has been truly inspirational and I can't wait to start making the changes to the design and planting of my garden. "
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