Creating a Romantic English Country Garden 

No — the Bannermans deliberately keep things simple and describe their own garden as "very humble and straightforward, so anyone can do it like this." Whether you have a small courtyard, a town garden or several acres, you'll find practical, transferable ideas such as growing in gravel, using big pots, planting ramblers up existing trees and creating structure with hedges. Confident gardeners and design students will equally enjoy the deeper discussion of grids, sightlines and long-term planting evolution.

Absolutely. Isabel and Julian show how grand Italian influences — grottos, fountains, arbours — can be scaled down to a backyard trough, and their courtyard lesson is a masterclass in cobbles, gravel, self-seeding plants and container planting for a compact space. They stress that even a tiny courtyard garden can be made "absolutely wonderful" with scent, colour and clever structure.

The course covers choosing between large mature yews and small plants, why gravel paths bounce light and act as an extra seed bed, how to build a planting scheme around roses, shrubs and irises, and how to use sacrificial planting such as anchusa and annuals while slower plants establish. You'll also get hands-on advice on lavender pruning, sweet pea tepees made from hazel, protecting young plants with hessian, choosing big terracotta pots over small ones and training rambling roses up trees for low-maintenance impact.

Isabel and Julian Bannerman are among Britain's most celebrated garden designers, with 40 years of work behind them including the famous stumpery at Highgrove, Arundel Castle, Houghton Hall and Dumfries House. Rather than a rulebook, this course is a candid conversation filmed in their own Somerset garden, where they share their inspirations, their philosophy of romantic, theatrical, scented gardens and the mistakes they've made along the way. It's a rare chance to hear how professional designers actually think about structure, atmosphere, maintenance and living in a garden.

All of our courses are online, meaning that you are able to watch them whenever and wherever suits you best. There is no beginning or finish date and they’re completely self-paced so that you can stop, start and pause each lesson to fit around your own schedule. You can begin watching a course as soon as you purchase it – simply login to your Create Academy account whenever you have a quiet moment to yourself.

Yes! You can rewatch each lesson as many times as you’d like. If you have purchased an individual course, you will have lifetime access to it, so you’ll be able to rewatch and dip in and out of each lesson forever - perfect if you have a busy schedule! If you purchased an annual subscription, you can enjoy full access to all of our lessons until you choose to cancel.

If you have purchased an individual course, you will have life time access.

An annual subscription gives you access to all courses for 12 months from the date of purchase, including those released during that period. Our subscriptions are set to automatically renew after 12 months so you have the benefit of uninterrupted access! If you choose to cancel, you will no longer have access to the platform.

Below each video lesson you’ll find the link to download the corresponding workbook pages. If you’d like to download the whole workbook at once, simply navigate to the very first lesson in the course and click 'Download Workbook'.

We’re on a mission to help you build your creative confidence and live a more creatively fulfilled life. Through beautifully curated video courses, we give you unprecedented access to the expertise of today’s best designers, makers, gardeners and chefs - allowing you to unlock your creativity whenever and wherever you want.

Yes – all our courses are available internationally. Please note, all our courses are taught in English.