Home Garden Expert Course

DESCRIPTION

This course has been Producing Garden Experts since 1985

Want to know more about gardening?
Whatever your reason for gardening, this course will help you to garden more efficiently and effectively. There are 8 lessons involved in this course. Each lesson is made up of 2 or 3 parts.

“If you would like to be the ‘gardening go to person’ of your neighbourhood, Home Garden Expert is great for expanding your skills in all aspects of caring for your home garden. People of all ages have benefited from this course.”- Tracey Morris Dip.Hort., Cert.Hort., Cert III Organic Farming.

LESSON STRUCTURE

There are 8 lessons in this course:

1. Basic Plant Identification & Culture
2. Plant names, planting, transplanting, tools & equipment.
3. Soils & Nutrition
4. Soil structure, nutrition, composting, soil building, drainage, fertilizers.
5. Pests & Weeds
6. Identifying problems, sprays, biological control, weed identification & control.
7. Landscaping
8. How to design a garden, rockeries, native gardens, traditional (European style) home gardens.
9. Propagation
10. Propagating materials, seed, cuttings.
11. Lawns
12. Turf varieties, laying a lawn, lawn care.
13. Indoor Gardening
14. Hardy indoor plants, container growing.
15. The Kitchen Garden
16. Vegetable gardening, fruit trees, herbs.

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.

AIMS

Identify plant health problems and know treatments.

Know the plant naming system and how plants are classified.

Understand the effect of soil structure and texture on plant growth.

Understand plant terminology and planting methods.

Understand plant pruning requirements and methods

Know plant nutrition requirements

Understand soil conditions and when they require improvement.

Recognise a range of pests and diseases and the methods of control.

Recognise a range of weeds and know various control methods.

Know a range of garden styles and the history behind them.

Have knowledge of landscape construction techniques.

Understand the elements and processes of landscape design.

Understand various propagating techniques

Propagate plants by various methods

Understand the soil preparation and requirements to establish or renovate a lawn

Know lawn maintenance requirements.

Understand requirements, including environmental and nutritional aspects of growing plants indoors (including hydroponics and greenhouses).

Know how to select plants suited to growth indoors

Develop knowledge of vegetable growing procedures and requirements.

Have knowledge of a range of fruits and berries suited to the home garden

Have knowledge of a range of commonly grown herbs and flowers

WHAT YOU WILL DO

Read notes written and supplied by staff of this school

Watch instructional video

Test and name different soils

Mix inexpensive potting mixes

Make compost and explain how you made it.

Learn how to identify plants effectively.

Explain step by step how you would go about planting shrubs in your own locality.

Explain how to transplant and transport plants from one propertyu to another.

Determine the tools required to do gardening for a property, using a limited supply of money.

Explain characteristics of soil, including: Soil Structure, pH and Nutrient Deficiency

Describe how to fertilize a lawn

Explain how to improve drainage in a soil that is too wet for plants to do well in.

Explain how you would improve a specified soil

Identify a nutrient deficiency

Observe and identify different categories of pest and disease problems in growing plants.

Compile a weed collection with pressings or illustrations of different weeds

Compile a plant collection with pressings or illustrations of different weeds

Describe how environmental problems affect plants

Recommend ways of controlling different types opf problems in plants, using both natural and chemical.

Observe and evaluate different types of gardens.

DELIVERY

Correspondence

Online