Caroline Bailey: Bali Chalk Fund Award Winning Garden Designer

 From Set Design to Garden Design: LCGD’s Caroline Bailey wins The Bali Chalk Fund Student of the Year Award, South Thames Student Award.

The London College of Garden Design is delighted to announce that Caroline Bailey has been named this year’s winner of the BALI Chalk Fund National Garden Design Student of the Year for 2026. The BALI (British Association of Landscape Industries) Chalk Fund, is a charity which supports education across the landscape sector. 

Caroline first won the South Thames Regional title back in May of this year, and from this, went forward to the national stage. Since graduating from the London College of Garden Design (LCGD) with a Distinction in July, she has now been awarded the National title in her category, making her an award winning garden designer, and we could not be more proud. 

Before changing career paths, Caroline spent almost twenty years as a graphic designer in the Film & TV Industry, where she worked on dramas and feature films in the UK and abroad. Caroline’s career change into garden design, through our Garden Design Diploma course, shows just how far skills can travel. Her materials & structure based design, and ability to create atmospheres came with her, and now it shapes her gardens. The design for a North Yorkshire family garden aptly demonstrates these abilities. Set against a historic landscape and listed walls, it uses interlocking terraces that each serve a different purpose. 

Caroline’s first career wasn’t left behind, it became the foundation of her garden design. 

Alongside this foundation, sat a love of plants and gardening that began as a weekend hobby, which led to her taking the Garden Design Diploma at the London College of Garden Design. On the course she met, “the most fantastic, talented people” in horticulture, and found the confidence to turn that hobby into a profession.

Now a graduate, Caroline has begun her own garden design practice, and is now taking on residential and public realm projects. She is also keen to inspire young people from all backgrounds, showing them that horticulture offers careers, well beyond planting. From technology and CAD to placemaking. 

Caroline will receive her award at the BALI National Landscape Awards in London this December, joining Craig Atkinson, our graduate who won the same national title in 2023. 

Congratulations again Caroline, we look forward to your Award Ceremony in December. 

Caroline is just one of many students who have changed their career path with the LCGD. 

Read our guide to changing careers here.

Explore the Garden Design Diploma course at the London College of Garden Design at Kew here.