Recently, T-level Horticulture students at Cirencester College worked on an exciting project with Hortico Plant Centre in Sherston, in which they were tasked with making a floral display for the Badminton Horse Trials 75th anniversary.
Piers Lavan, Course Team Leader for T-level Horticulture, said “The Badminton Horse Trials design was exactly the sort of problem we love in T-level Horticulture! The students were given a brief of ‘We want to celebrate the 75th Anniversary on the most photographed jump in the equine eventing world, and we need to take account of drone camera technology’
The students made a pair of moveable templates with lots of accurate size grading bars in order to accurately draw numbers and letters to the same scale. They then spray painted the numbers on wooden boards to check and perfect the shapes and proportions. Next, they laid out the plants to check how many they would need to fill up the numbers.
Once the course was built, we dug the beds on the lake side and left them to settle and the grass to regrow before the big day. The actual plants only went in the day before the event to make sure they all looked their best.
The project was about design, logistics, business, teamwork, health and safety, volumetrics and a little bit of horticulture tacked on the end too.”
Year 1 student, Cyrus, said “Being involved in the project for the Badminton Horse Trials was a great experience. Being able to see the final design in person and then actually see it on the telly was amazing!”
For more information on this story please contact chloe.suter@cirencester.ac.uk
