There was a strong demand by residents for help with designing their gardens and landscapes but many often feel overwhelmed by the information and process required. As a result, a program was designed to help support those residents.

On August 29th, September 3rd, and 12th, 2024, participants attended the Garden Design Workshop: Enhance Your Outdoor Space program at the Kenton Lands facility. This was attended by twenty-four people with the intended outcome of having a basic understanding of the principles of garden design and providing tools to help homeowners design their landscapes to meet the needs and goals of their properties. For the first evening program, a PowerPoint overview of garden design principles and the distribution of tools and supplies for planning a design on paper at home was given. The second class allowed for design work in person for individuals to work on their project, as well as an explanation of using free, online design software to help facilitate the design process. Finally, for those who wanted to share the projects they were working on, there was an opportunity to share their design intentions with the group during the final class. Feedback provided by surveys given before and after the program finished indicated that most respondents left the program feeling more confident in understanding garden design fundamentals. Further, most respondents with a design project in mind anticipated doing all the work themselves, and nearly all of those responded “yes”, when asked if they were hoping to save money and time using the tools and education taken from this program. For most who garden at home, professional design is a luxury that many residents are not willing to pay for or cannot afford. They attended this program looking for tools to equip themselves and solve issues, whether it be functionality or aesthetics for value added to residential properties, aligning with horticulture, consumer, and home program support initiatives. Feedback also indicated that there was a strong desire for more information delivered over more classes and that it may have been too much information to distill over three weeks for beginners. Suggestions included: more examples and a demonstration of designing a garden on-site. This feedback has impacted how the program will be designed in the future as it seems to be of benefit to homeowners in Kenton County.