Landscape Gardening Students Compete Live at Malvern Spring Gardening Show 18th May 2011

18 students from colleges and the landscape industry worked extremely hard at the Malvern Spring Gardening Show, 12-15th May, in a Competition Heat to fight for a place in the National UK Final.

The WorldSkills UK Landscape Gardening Competition is run by the British Association of Landscape Industries (BALI) and sponsored by Marshalls plc.

Competitors were tasked to build within 6 hours, identical 2x3m gardens which were designed by BALI award winning designer, Patricia Fox of Aralia Garden Design. Competitors began at 9am with an empty plot and by 4pm, had all demonstrated their developing skills as trainee landscape gardeners. The judges, Mitch Westwood (Westwood Solutions), Charlie Maclauchlan (Country Gardens) and Roger Clark (OnSite Training UK); moderated by Peter Killen (BALI); were looking for accuracy of build, correct construction, good use of tools and health and safety practice.

Angela Radley, competition project manager from BALI, commented: “Thank you to all competitors for their efforts over the past four days. They all showed fantastic friendly competition spirit and were a delight to work with. Some competitors were just 16-18 years old and new to the skill of landscape gardening and at this stage in their training, had not built a complete garden. They did tremendously well and will have learnt a lot from taking part.

“The aim of the WorldSkills UK Landscape Gardening Competition is to continually strive to up-skill those coming into the industry and to showcase publicly the skill, hard work and dedication it takes to become a professional landscape gardener. BALI would like to thank main sponsor, Marshalls for all their material and staff support throughout the show“.

The next stage of the competition process will see top scoring competitors come back to compete in the National Final at the Malvern Autumn Show, 22^nd– 25^thSeptember 2011. WorldSkills UK will verify the following results within five working days. Following this BALI will then announce which competitors will be invited to participate in the WorldSkills UK Landscape Gardening National Final.

The results from the competition (subject to WorldSkills UK verification) are:

Editors Information

About WorldSkills UK

WorldSkills UK is set of skills competitions managed in partnership with organisations from industry and education. Run in over 50 skill areas, the competitions test competitors’ knowledge and practical application against current industry benchmarks.

WorldSkills UK competitions are run in the following sectors: Built Environment, Engineering, Information Technology and Business Administration, Creative and Cultural Arts and Social and Professional Services.

WorldSkills UK is managed by the National Apprenticeship Service, part of the Skills Funding Agency. For more information please visit www.worldskillsuk.org

About BALI

The British Association of Landscape Industries (BALI) was established in 1972 and is the leading trade association for the landscaping sector.

BALI is established to promote, support and inspire all professional landscapers, garden designers and landscape suppliers to be leaders of an environmentally, ethically, and commercially sustainable landscape industry.

Member businesses include landscapers, landscape contractors, grounds maintenance contractors, interior landscapers, gardeners, garden designers. Our members also have specialist skills in treework, disabled gardens, gardens designs, gardening, fencing, hard landscaping, soft landscaping, turf, lawn care, trees and shrubs, hydroseeding, interiorscapes, drainage, groundworks, roof gardens and sports grounds.

About the Competition

Every year the landscape gardening competition attracts, on average, 30 competitors from colleges and industry. Competing within regional heats; those scoring highest are invited to complete in a national final.

The 2011 regional heat was hosted as a live feature of Malvern Spring Gardening Show and Malvern Autumn Show will host the WorldSkills UK Landscape Gardening National Final. Outstanding national finalists across the UK may be selected to compete for a place in the team that represents the UK at WorldSkills, the world’s largest skills competition.Team UK competes in the biennial international WorldSkills competition where almost 1200 competitors from around 50 countries compete to win medals. The next International WorldSkills competition will be held this year in London between 5 ^- 8^thOctober at ExCeL London.

For more information about the World Skills Landscape Gardening Competition please visit the BALI website at http://www.bali.org.uk/uk_skills/introduction or call 02476 690 658.

For more information about WorldSkills London 2011 visit www.worldskillslondon2011.com

Sponsors

Marshalls plc
Aralia Garden Design
Crowders Nurseries
Three Counties Showground
Stihl
Q Lawns
Landscapeplus.com
Melcourt Industries
Fasten Master

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