Certificate of Garden Maintenance

Unit 1 – Introduction Planning and Managing a Garden

• Cost of maintenance
• Expensive and less expensive areas of a garden
• Planning
• Garden checklists
• Analysing maintenance of parks and gardens
• Organising garden maintenance staff

Unit 2 – Garden Furnishings and Machinery

• What tool for what job
• Overview of machinery
• Mowers and how to mow
• Aerators, chippers, mechanised sprayers, chain saws, brush cutters, etc.
• Tractors
• Tool maintenance
• Engine troubleshooting
• Outdoor furniture -plastic, timber, metal
• Protecting furnishings -paints, stains, preservatives

Unit 3 – Feeding Plants

• Symptoms of nutritional and other problems
• Conducting an inspection of plants
• Soil characteristics and identification of soil issues
• Review of plant nutrition
• Choosing the right fertiliser
• Diagnosing nutritional problems
• Improving soils

Unit 4 – Weed Control

• Nature and scope of weed problems
• Natural ways to control weeds -suffocation, burning, cultivation, etc
• Common groups of weeds and options for treating and recognising different weed varieties

Unit 5 – Weedicides

• How weeds spread
• Types of chemicals found in weedicides and suitable weedicide
• Which chemical would control the weed
• Chemicals and the law

Unit 6 – Natural Pest Control

• Scope and nature of natural controls
• Cultural controls
• Mechanical control methods
• Physical control methods
• Methods for controlling selected insects
• Companion planting
• Common environmental problems
• Tolerance levels in different plants
• Biological controls
• Natural sprays
• Buffer zones
• Mulching

Unit 7 – Chemical Pest Control

• Integrated pest management (IPM)
• Ways of applying chemicals
• Safety with chemicals
• Understanding pesticides -toxicity, ld50, persistence, etc.
• Specific chemical treatments and a summary of pesticides

Unit 8 – Turf Management

• Common turf problems
• Turf pests
• Chemical damage
• Establishment and maintenance of lawns
• Mowing, fertilizing, aeration, etc
• Turf varieties, appropriate turf for specific areas, low and high maintenance turf

Unit 9 – Irrigation

• Importance of water
• Water loss from different soils & improving water retention
• Understanding water dynamics in soil
• Irrigation -types of systems
• Planning an irrigation system
• Using an irrigation system
• Controlling slippery surfaces

Unit 10 – Maintenance of Plants

• Why prune
• Before pruning
• Time of pruning: does it matter?
• What to consider when pruning
• Removing dead wood
• Controlling shape and size
• How to prune different types of plants