Flowers Courses

Cut Flower Bulbs

Grow Bulbs Commercially or Follow a Passion

This is a course designed for the flowering bulb enthusiast or commercial bulb grower interested in starting their own business for the cut flower market. There are ten lessons in this course with loads of practical skills to get you inspired and to get you growing!

You will learn the basics of all good horticultural practice: understanding of soil types, plant nutrition, management of pest and diseases, environmental management and also the various types of bulbs used for flower production.

Cut Flower Production

Study How to Grow Cut Flowers on a Small Holding or Farm

This course provides a thorough basic training for the commercial cut flower grower. This is a diverse industry with potential in virtually every corner of the world. Cut flower growing involves many considerations that require unique knowledge and skills such as:

How to initiate flowering out of season
How to ensure blemish free product for optimum prices
Harvest and post harvest treatments to increase shelf life
Crop selection in the light of changing fashions and supply/demand fluctuations

Cut flower growing has experienced rapid expansion in recent decades, resulting in increased demand for training in the skills and knowledge required by this industry in increasingly affluent countries.

Successful flower growing can be a complex thing. Not only do you need to know how to grow the flower, but also what to grow and how to treat it after you remove it from the plant.Your knowledge of how to grow, harvest and market a wide variety of different cut flowers will develop throughout this course, and as you learn, you will discover opportunities that you may not have even considered before.

Growing Annuals

Learn How to Grow Annuals

Annuals are a valuable horticultural crop grown commercially as cut flowers, as seedlings or as advanced pots of colour. With careful choice, versatile annuals can deliver year round colour in the home garden. They work to fill gaps between perennials, they can be used to disguise the messy foliage of bulbs as they seasonally die-off, and they can help to keep gardens or parks in the peak of perfection.

Growing Carnations

Learn to Grow Carnations and Dianthus

A serious course equally valuable to the home enthusiast or the commercial cut flower grower. You learn about growing quality carnations (planting, watering, pest and disease control, fertilizing), different ways of growing them (e.g. as row crops in soil, in hydroponics, in a greenhouse); and harvesting, post-harvest treatments, and quality control.

Growing Iris

Gain an Appreciation of Irises - Species, Varieties and Cultural Needs

This is a valuable course for anyone with a serious interest in irises either as a commercial grower or an enthusiastic home collector. You will gain an in-depth appreciation of the iris, how to grow them to achieve optimum results and the identification of different varieties of irises. Significant sections are included on landscaping with irises, hybridisation and propagation, harvest, post-harvest treatments, achieving and assessing quality, and exhibiting the flowers.

Perennials

Beautiful and Versatile Perennials

Perennials come in all forms, from herbaceous plants that die down in the winter and re-emerge in spring (year after year), to plants that retain their soft-stemmed leafy growth year round. Although beautiful, many perennials are also tough and very much adapted to a variety of climates - ranging from very dry to wet. Some have colourful foliage as well as beautiful flowers, others add architectural interest - but all add excitement and diversity to the landscape or garden as they burst into flower each year.

Discover what perennials are, which perennial plants are most popular today, their cultural requirements (ie. feeding, watering, soil requirements, pruning, pest control), and learn how to use them to create beautiful landscapes. A course equally valuable to landscapers, nurserymen, cut flower growers and garden enthusiasts.

Qualification - Certificate In Horticulture (Cut Flowers)

Cut Flower Growing

A 600hr course for people working or wishing to work in the area of cut flower production. This course is similar to other VHT002 horticulture certificates in its introductory (core) units, but devotes 50% of the course to topics specifically related to the production and marketing of cut flowers.

The Core Units are the same as for the above certificates (i.e. Introduction to Plants, Plant Culture, Soils and Nutrition, Plant Identification and Use, Pests, Diseases and Weeds).

Accreditation: International Accreditation & Recognition Council (IARC)

Roses

Attention Rose Enthusiasts or Rose Farmers

This unique and comprehensive course is equally relevant to professional and amateur growers.

Roses, often referred to as 'The Queen of the Garden', are one of the most popular and prized ornamental plants. They are included in the greatest gardens in the world and many claim roses to be the most beautiful flower in existence.

The value of their blooms however extends beyond the ornamental garden; roses are grown for many reasons including: the cut flower trade, for perfume extraction, to harvest the hips and for rose oil. This course covers all these aspects and much more. Learn the history of the rose, the confusing rose classification system, how to identify the different species, their general cultural needs (soils, pests and disease management and pruning), how to use roses in garden design and how to produce a commercial rose crop.

For the rose enthusiast!