I am always baffled by this distinction. I am an American with and MLA (currently taking LARE) and just spent the last 3 1/2 years living in the UK and have met and seen Tim Richardson speak once or twice. I love garden design as much as I do public space design, urban planning and community design and consider myself qualified in all of these areas. Tim is always stirring the pot and usually raises valid points. I whole-heartedly agree that landscape architects should consider themselves garden designers, or more accurately, be encouraged to pursue this as a valid and worthy use of their time. Landscape Architecture has many roots and has evolved to be able to address many issues in modern times. I think planting design should be able to be done by anyone, as it currently is, but grading, structure and overall planning of the landscape should require consulting a LA (this is not the case in the UK for garden design).
If there were to be a merger between the SGD and the LI, I would hope the standards of the LI would remain the same and the garden designers would be held to the higher standard. I’m not sure if this would ever happen in England though as a lot of people in the SGD come from very different backgrounds, sometimes with no formal design training at all. Garden design in the UK is such a national past time, I can’t see it becoming so regulated. Clients always have the choice about which profession to choose though, although I not sure most clients in the UK or US understand how LA’s differ from garden designers.
Long story short, I think LA’s should take ownership of garden design, but planting design can be open for the taking if someone is resourceful enough to make it a profession.
