Eight students are celebrating after being selected to compete in the semi finals of the WorldSkills UK competition.

Organising partner, the Association of Professional Landscapers (APL) are delighted to announce that students from College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise Greenmount Campus (CAFRE), Reaseheath College, Bishop Burton College and Sparsholt College will compete in the Landscape Gardening heats at RHS Flower Show Tatton Park in July.

The lucky eight are Dean Thomson, Jonathan Buchanan, Ronan McLarnon and Robert Wylie from CAFRE,  Richard Carden from Reaseheath College, Samuel Birks from Bishop Burton College, as well as Andrew Hannam and Aaron Cunningham from Sparsholt College.

They will now go on to the heats at RHS Tatton where they will be required to build a 2mx6m garden designed by award-winning Alexandra Froggatt.

The 2014 event has seen a record number of entries into the Landscape Gardening competition.  Those that entered were put through a tough theory test and the top eight were selected after a tie breaker exercise. 

The winners go on to The Skills Show at the Birmingham NEC in November where finalists compete to be named the ‘Best in the UK’ in front of 70,000 people. 

Outstanding national finalists from this year’s WorldSkills UK National Competition Cycle, who meet the qualifying criteria, could be selected for a once in a lifetime opportunity to represent the UK in their chosen skill at the international WorldSkills Competition.

Judges for the Landscape Gardening competition include award winning APL Chairman, Mark Gregory who has over 120 show gardens to his name, garden designer and four times RHS gold medal winner Adam Frost, Jody Lidgard, who has run his own landscaping firm for over 18 years and 2011 WorldSkillsUK medal winner Simon Abbott.

The WorldSkills UK competition which is part of a set of over 70 UK wide skills competitions ranging from landscape gardening to engineering, electronics to the arts; all of which are designed by industry experts and targeted at apprentices, college and university students, trainees and employees.

Mark Gregory, judge and APL Chairman said: “Congratulations to the students who have made it through to the semi finals at RHS Tatton.  WorldSkillsUK is the biggest secret that people don’t know about. The competitions inspire young people and adults to be ambitious in their pursuit of skills to the highest level. The APL are delighted to be organising partner and this demonstrates our on-going pledge of encouraging landscaping excellence and raising the profile of vocational skills.”