Plant & Soil Science: Home & Garden Horticulture

Planning, selecting, and maintaining shrubs, trees, flowers, lawns, fruits, and vegetables around the home. Suitable for students in any major.

Dates: May 23 - August 12, 2022; Meets synchronously online in the evening: 8:00-9:15pm.

To provide students with basic horticultural knowledge to enable them to have a better understanding of the care and use of plants in and around the home, including ornamental trees, shrubs and flowers, as well as vegetables, fruits and turf grass. If you want a very practical course that you can use the knowledge you gain from it immediately, then this is the course for you! The format will be on-line with 2 recorded lectures released each week. This lecture method avoids technical issues that can arise when the lectures are presented live via Teams. Based on reviews from students who took this course in the past, they really enjoyed the flexibility in when they were able to view the lectures. On Thursdays, we will have a “Question and Answer” session on the material presented in the lectures for that week. The Q & A sessions will be live using Teams. Attendance at the Q & A sessions is not required but they are the best way to get the most out of this class! Exams will be offered ONLY DURING THE SCHEDULED CLASS TIME.

After taking this course, students will be able to properly manage ornamental and edible plants in the home landscape (indoors and out). This will include proper watering, fertilizing, pest management, and plant selection. Soils, soil amendments and composting will also be presented. Additionally, students will learn how to propagate a variety of plants through seeds, cuttings, layering and grafting.

Your grade for the course will be determined by 3 multiple choice exams and 13 weekly multiple choice quizzes. The exams will be worth 25% each for a total of 75% of your grade and the weekly quizzes will total 25% of your final grade. The lowest 3 quiz scores will be dropped. I do NOT offer extra credit to individual students solely to improve a grade. Ample extra credit questions will be available to everyone on the exams and quizzes. All exams and most of the quizzes will use Blackboard with Respondus web browser with monitor.