Indoor Plants

Sneak Peek

Indoor Plants Short Course

This course teaches you how to better manage indoor plants:

What to grow where!
How to grow it!
How to keep it in good condition!
How to detect and attend to problems!
This course is "Plantscaping for inside a building"!

WHY?

Some people will do this course as an amateur who just wants to grow and use indoor plants better in their own home.

Others though, will do this course in preparation for working with indoor plants; or to improve your ability to work with them.

OPPORTUNITIES

People work with indoor plants in various ways, including:

Plantscaping companies - design, build and sometimes maintain indoor plantscapes
Specialist nurseries - propagate, grow and sell indoor plants to retailers, contractors or direct to the public
Contractors who visit (mostly commercial) buildings routinely, inspecting, carrying out maintenance, and if needed, replacing sick plants
Environmental companies -may focus on creating  better environments within a building; through a number of initiatives - and plants may be a part of their broader strategy

Lesson Structure

There are 8 lessons in this course:

1. This short course covers seven lessons:
2. Lesson 1 Introduction to Indoor Plants
   • Psychological and physical benefits of plants
   • Where indoor plants are used
   • Considerations when introducing indoor plants
   • Groups of indoor plants
3. Lesson 2 Ways to Grow plants inside
   • Containers and growing systems for indoor plants
   • Planters, pots or tubs
   • Problems with containers
   • Hanging baskets, hanging pots, wall baskets and planter boxes
   • Atriums and terrariums
   • Green walls
   • Tower gardens
   • Systems used for indoor plant installations
   • Water and watering
   • Watering systems
   • Fertigation
   • Potting media
4. Lesson 3 Planning and installation
   • Formulating a design approach
   • Design
   • Placing container plants
   • How to use colour with indoor plants
   • Principles of design
   • Design elements
   • Evaluating a building
   • Choosing the system
   • Environmental controls/improvements
   • Choosing the plants and conditioning them
   • Conditioning plants for indoors
   • Providing drainage
   • Installation techniques
   • Installing baskets and hanging pots
   • Installing window boxes
   • Atriums
   • Terrariums
   • Placing container plants
   • How to use colour with indoor plants
   • Mixing colours
   • Walls
   • Mirrors
5. Lesson 4 Maintenance of indoor plants
   • General care
   • Maintenance of hanging baskets
   • Maintaining a terrarium
   • General maintenance tasks for vertical gardens
   • Water movement from soils to roots
   • Understanding soil and potting mix
6. Lesson 5 Pest and disease
   • Identifying problems
   • Maintaining plant health
   • Symptoms and diagnosis
7. Lesson 6 Hardy indoor plants
   • Plants species that grow in low - moderate light
   • Plants species that grow in air conditioning
   • Plants species that grow in temperature extremes
   • Growing culinary herbs indoors in winter
8. Lesson 7 Air quality management and indoor plants
   • What is in the air?
   • Humidity
   • Pollutants
   • Ventilation
   • Plants
   • Plant species that grow in poor air and pollution