General Gardening Practices

Mike Maddox

General Gardening Practices

Introduction:

Watch the introductory video from Amy Freidig, UW-Madison Division of Extension Outreach Specialist.

Whether you are a novice or experienced gardener, there is always skills to learn to be more successful in your gardening endeavors. This module provides a solid foundation, based on university research, for common gardening practices. Although some plants may require specialized techniques, many practices used to maintain healthy plants and landscapes are applicable to a wide variety of plants, including annual and perennial flowers, vegetables, fruits, trees, and shrubs. As you read through the material and watch the videos, think about your own gardening practices and anything that you might consider doing differently in your own yard or garden.

Objectives:

After completing the reading in the manual, online module, and class activities, you will:

Explain why right plant, right place is important in IPM;
Define hardiness zones and identify if a plant is hardy to a zone;
Describe how to do various garden maintenance techniques and list the benefits to the plant for watering, mulching, fertilizing, weeding, pruning/deadheading/pinching back, fall cleanup and winter protection;
Identify the steps to prepare a planting bed;
Describe planting techniques (direct seeding, transplanting) and identify the pros and cons of both.

Read:

Chapter 9 General Gardening Practices, Pages 149-168

Watch:

Presenter: Sharon Morrisey, former Milwaukee County Consumer Horticulture Educator.
FYI: These videos were created for Master Gardener Volunteer Training and are used with permission for Foundations in Horticulture.
There are four required videos, for a total view time of ~48 minutes.

Practice:

Review key concepts using the interactive activities below. Click on the box in the lower right corner of the graphic to make it bigger. Use ESC to come back to this page.