Plant Management in Nurseries and Garden Centres

Learn how to efficiently manage plants in nurseries and garden centres!

In this fully self-paced and automated 20-hour short course, you will learn about plant propagation, potting and transplanting, nursery stock selection and management, plant breeding, pest and disease management, and plant growing media in a wholesale situation. 

Lesson Structure

There are 6 lessons in this course:

1. Propagation
   • Sexual propagation
   • Asexual propagation
   • Propagation efficiency
   • Practical exercise
   • Review what you have been learning
2. Potting and Transplanting
   • Transplanting
   • Potting up plants
   • Growing on
   • In-ground production
   • Review what you have been learning
3. Selecting and Managing Nursery Stock
   • Considering your stock options
   • Criteria for selecting plants
   • Developing a nursery stock list – an example
   • Nursery stocklist worksheet
   • Stock plants for production/propagation nurseries
   • Propagation material
   • Quarantine issues when selecting stock
   • Environmental weeds and plant selection
   • Managing plants in retail nuseries
   • Exercise: nursery inspection sheet
   • Holding stock
   • Plant modification
   • Making flowers out of season
   • Using light to modify plant growth
   • Examples of flowering control
   • Review what you have been learning
4. Plant Breeding and Ownership
   • Genetic improvement of plants
   • Plant reproduction
   • Genetic variations
   • Male sterility
   • Genetics versus environment
   • Monohybrid and dihybrid crosses
   • Quantitative traits
   • Plant breeding programs
   • Hybrid seed production – an outline
   • Hybridising techniques
   • Micropropagation
   • Plant breeders’ rights/plants varieties rights and trademarks
   • Review what you have been learning
5. Pest and Disease Management
   • Integrated pest management
   • Identifying the problem
   • Resistant plants
   • Hygiene
   • Cultural controls
   • Quarantine
   • Physical controls
   • Biological controls
   • Chemical controls
   • Minimising chemical use
   • Types of chemicals
   • A review of chemicals
   • Ways of applying chemicals
   • Weed control
   • Some chemicals and their modes of action
   • Noxious weeds
   • Using chemicals
   • Safe use of weed killers
   • Review what you have been learning
6. Growing Media
   • Understanding soils
   • Soil testing and sampling
   • Improving soils
   • Potting mixes
   • Propagation media
   • The nutrient elements
   • Nutrition management
   • Review what you have been learning
   • Final assessment

How Your Course Works

1. Enrol any time. Your enrolment will be processed usually within a day or two; and during business hours, often within an hour.
2. You will then receive an email explaining the course and how to access to a study guide, and our help desk. The guide contains both an audio and written explanation of how the course can be undertaken in a way where you can choose to emphasise or de-emphasise aspects of your learning, according to where your greatest interest or needs may lay.
3. You then follow the study guide, reading and undertaking varied learning tasks, designed by professional educators to broaden and deepen your understanding of the subject. These tasks can vary from practicals to research and more.
4. If and when you need to, you can contact our academic staff via a help desk. Emails are answered every working day.
5. On concluding each lesson, you are presented with a series of automated self assessment questions, to review and reinforce your learning experience.
6. On conclusion of all lessons, you are presented with a major online exam comprising numerous questions reflecting the scope of all lessons.
7. The exam is assessed in our online training system immediately as it is submitted; and if you achieve a result of 60% or more, you are given access to download a “Certificate of Completion”. This certificate carries your name (extracted from the original enrolment order) together with a current date, and carrying endorsements from this school and the ACS Global Partners Network.

Everything is automatic, but if you do need help at any point along your journey of discovery there is a help desk, with real people who have real expertise – only an email away!