Chelsea Gold Before Graduation Day: Susie Kennedy Completes Her Advanced Diploma
Most students wait until Graduation to celebrate. Susie Kennedy decided to win a gold medal at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show first.
Susie has completed the London College of Garden Design’s Advanced Diploma as of July 2026, which means finishing three of our courses: Garden Design Diploma, Planting Design and Plantsmanship. She earned distinctions in all three, and her final planting design project won the Judge’s Award.
It’s a serious achievement for anyone, and Susie came to us from a career as a florist. She brought that eye for colour, form and seasonality into the classroom, and built on it with the technical and design skills each course demands.
Her business has moved quickly alongside her studies. She now runs Kennedys’ Garden Design Studio from the Surrey Hills, where her work blends timeless, romantic planting with a strong focus on sustainability, biodiversity and climate resilience. In 2025 she designed the Monastic Healing Garden at RHS Hampton Court, the project that inspired her to aim for Chelsea.
In May she did exactly that. Susie and fellow LCGD student Kate Henning won a gold medal at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026 for Tales from the Riverbank, a balcony garden set on the deck of a houseboat. It featured a rooftop kitchen garden, a dipping tank harvesting rainwater and an outdoor kitchen built for cooking straight from the harvest, with willow hurdle fencing and reclaimed scaffold board cladding giving it a lived in riverbank feel.
Food writer and Fortnum & Mason vegetable expert Kathy Slack cooked from the garden throughout the show, which is surely the best possible way to judge a kitchen garden!
Kate Henning’s story is a good one too. A chartered architectural technologist by training, she started a garden maintenance business in 2014 before studying with us and earning distinctions in Planting Design and Plantsmanship. She launched her own Planting Design Studio in 2025 and lives on a houseboat in Surrey, which made her the natural co-designer for this garden.
A career change, a full Advanced Diploma, a growing studio and a Chelsea gold, all in one year.
Congratulations, Susie. We can’t wait to see what you do next. 🌿
Thinking about your own career change? Explore our Garden Design Diploma and Planting Design courses at Kew Gardens.
