Horticulture I 100 Hours Certificate Course

There are 13 lessons in this course:

1 Plant identification

• Naming plants
• Distinguishing the taxonomic divisions of plants including family, genus, species and variety or hybrid
• Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons
• Characteristics of botanical families
• Structure and arrangement of leaves and leaflets
• Leaf terminology
• Leaf arrangements
• Flower structure and identifying the different parts of a flower
• How seeds form
• Plant reviews
• Collecting and pressing plants for herbaria

2 Planting

• Garden terminology
• Common garden problems
• Basic planting procedure
• Fertilising and staking when planting
• Dealing with bare rooted plants
• Time of planting
• Deciding where to plant
• Mulching
• Making garden beds
• Raised beds
• Sunken beds
• Planting terminology

3 Recognising plant families and identifying plants

• Becoming familiar with plant families
• Botanical Latin
• Systematic examination of plants - dicot or monocot, type of wood, etc
• Characteristics of important families including: Amaryllidaceae, Araceae, Asteraceae, Ericaceae, Lamiaceae, Fabaceae.
• Getting to know more common families
• Other ways to identify plants
• Plants for shade
• Plants for exposed conditions
• Plants for inner city gardens

4 Soils

• Purpose of soil
• Soil structure: classifying soils
• Soil water and air
• Soil temperature
• Soil pH
• Nutrient availability
• Naming a soil
• Improving soils
• Composting
• Natural plant foods
• Sampling and testing soils
• Potting soil mixes
• Soil terminology

5 Plant nutrition

• The nutrient elements
• Major elements
• Minor elements
• Diagnosis of nutrient problems
• Fertilizers: nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium
• How much fertilizer to apply
• Terminology

6 Water management

• Introduction to irrigation
• Feasibility of irrigation
• Soil and water
• When to irrigate
• Water deficiency symptoms
• Types of soil moisture; gravitational, capillary, hygroscopic
• Measuring water available to plants
• Rooting depths of plants
• Estimating water requirements
• Pumps, sprinklers and other equipment
• Understanding hydraulics
• Conventional sprinkler systems; portable, permanent, semi permanent
• Cyclic watering
• Pulse watering
• Irrigation scheduling
• Sprinkler spacing
• Improving soils for water management
• Drainage
• Erosion management
• Soil compaction
• Acidification

7 Garden maintenance and weeds

• Cost of garden maintenance
• Machinery
• Comparing more and less costly areas of the garden.
• Common weeds and their identification
• Weed control methods - chemical and non chemical
• Plants that become invasive
• Environmental weeds

8 Pests and diseases

• Pest and disease overview
• Preventative measures for managing pest and disease
• Review of major pest problems and control options: Aphis, Borers, Caterpillar, Leaf Miner, Mealy Bug, Red Spider, Scale, etc
• Review of major diseases and their control: Anthracnose, Black Leg, Rots, Botrytis, Damping off, Die back, Mildew, Rust etc.
• Diagnosis of problems
• Introduction to plant pathology and entomology
• Chemical pesticides and basic toxicology
• Integrated pest management

9 Pruning

• Reasons for pruning
• Identifying bud types
• Basic rules of pruning
• Pruning in a home orchard
• Terminology
• Winter pruning tools
• Examples of winter pruning; Crepe Myrtle, Hydrangea, Raspberry, Fuchsia, Kiwi Fruit, Grevillea, etc
• Rose pruning

10 Landscaping

• Introduction and pre planning information
• Plant selection criteria
• Covering the ground
• Living plant cover
• Mulches
• Container growing outside
• General considerations
• Terminology

11 Propagation

• Methods of propagation: seed propagation and vegetative propagation
• Propagation structures: cold frames
• Cutting propagation
• Factors affecting rooting of cuttings

12 Lawns

• Turf grass varieties
• Review of common turf species
• Laying a new lawn
• Common turf problems
• Cultural techniques including watering, fertilizing, topdressing, aerating, pest and disease control.

13 Arboriculture

• What is arboriculture
• How to keep trees healthy
• Where and how to cut trees to remove branches or prune
• Why remove a tree
• Ways to fell a tree
• Removing a stump
• Tree surgery; terms and techniques

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.