Now the real work starts...

Well, my efforts this year have really paid off. It was great to get the news today that I had passed the Post-Graduate Diploma at the Oxford College of Garden Design with Distinction and an overall mark for the year's work of 84%. I have been very proud of all my projects this year, and can't wait to see more of my ideas reach fruition on the ground. The three core design projects all offered different challenges, but I ended up happy with the solutions I designed for each of them. They didn't win any prizes, but I believe they would all have made wonderful gardens, with strong ground plans, well-conceived underlying philosophies and magical planting.

So, thanks to all the wonderful staff and my fifteen female fellow-students - we had a great year and invented some lovely gardens together - real landscapes of the mind, which will never need weeding, and will always look their best...