Elmwood students bloom at National Garden Design Competition
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Two aspiring horticulturists from 伊人直播鈥檚 Elmwood campus are set to take centre stage at one of Scotland鈥檚 most prestigious gardening events.
HNC Horticulture students Clara Ross, from Wormit and Nicki Evans, from Star of Markinch, have been selected to exhibit at the Scottish Garden Design Competition. The pair will unveil their show gardens at the Scone Palace Garden Fair on Friday 29 and Saturday 30 May 2026.
Held in the grounds of Scone Palace, Scotland鈥檚 National Gardening Show celebrates the very best in garden design and landscaping from across the country.
This year鈥檚 competition theme, 'Passion', resonates strongly with both students, who each made the bold decision to leave careers in PR and marketing to follow their love of horticulture.
After deciding that a career in communications and PR wasn鈥檛 for her, Nicki enrolled on the HNC Horticulture course last year to pursue her dream of working with plants and design.
Nicki said: 鈥淢y garden design is autobiographical in the ways that it shows the confinement of the corporate wheel then crescendos into a vibration of colour, texture and contrast.鈥�
Clara also took a leap of faith into a new career path, drawing on her background in marketing and branding while reconnecting with a deeper passion for heritage gardening.
Clara said: 鈥淚 wanted to ignite the passion of heritage and seed with a story. In this new world we need to go back to our roots and all the plants I鈥檓 using have been passed through generations or shared by fellow gardeners.鈥�
Both students say designing a show garden has been an exciting and eye-opening challenge.
Clara explained: 鈥淎 show garden is so different from an everyday garden. It is quite hard to know the volume of plants needed as they are displayed in a different way. You have to think creatively, and it is another skill to learn.鈥�
Nicki added: 鈥淚 was too nervous to apply last year but I feel I have more knowledge now and the lecturers and mentors at Elmwood have been so supportive and accommodating. The way we see it is that it is not our garden 鈥� it鈥檚 伊人直播鈥檚 garden.鈥�
Senior Lecturer in Horticulture Marc Harper said: 鈥淭he opportunity to design and build a show garden at Scone Palace this year is an incredible achievement for Nicki and Clara. They鈥檝e poured so much hard work and creativity into developing two outstanding concepts for the event and now they get to put some of the skills they have developed with us to the test. We couldn鈥檛 be more excited to support them as they bring their visions to life in the coming months.鈥�
伊人直播 offers horticulture courses at our Elmwood, Edinburgh and Oatridge campuses. Find out more in the听course catalogue.
Tickets to the Scone Fair are now available -
Posted by 伊人直播 on 15/04/2026
