Oxford College of Garden Design: How to Survey a Garden Pt.2

I'm thinking about taking a landscaping class and was trying to find a reasonable one geared towards people that aren't planning this as a career change but also those people too. Because you know who wants to waste their time with a hobby level course.  lol.  So far the closest class I found to what I wanting is actually online and from the UK. It's called My Garden School and a class starts February 2nd by John Brookes. Here's the link: http://www.my-garden-school.com/course/garden-design-with-john-brookes/ So most people work on their own landscape as their first project. Perfect! And part of the homework for the class was to do a land survey of your plot. Really it's pre-class homework. So I haven't decided if I'm taking it for sure but I thought I'd go out and start measuring the yard. Kind of cold out and would be easier with someone to help hold the other end of the measuring tape but I wasn't ready to confess what I was up to so I used clamps to hold the other end. And it got dark when I was doing this so I had on my headlamp. Of course, as I'm at the corner closest to the neighbors with said head lamp on they decide to go somewhere and back out of the garage just 5 feet from me. I'm sure they think I'm crazy. I imagine them saying "Now what is she doing?"

But I did do a couple measurements wrong or not as they specified but still might work actually. Either way I can run out again in a bit after my ears thaw and do a few more.

Oxford College of Garden Design: How to Survey a Garden Pt.2

The reason I really went on this path is I was frustrated with my online garden planning tools. I love growveg.com when it comes to rotation of crops. BUT it still doesn't have everything I need to visualize how it'll look. I want my entire landscape to include edible and ornamental and be aesthetically pleasing. I have made models using the few plants they have in 3D on floorplanner.com. That helped to visualize when the plan wasn't so complex. BUT I never did get an accurate feel for the grading of the property and again limited on this one to non-edible plants.

So I was trying to find a how to really draw up a landscape plan and actually found this class from looking at images of landscape plans.

Doesn't that picture make you want to take this class?