Garden School Training Program
- Learn to identify and grow Acacias by Home Studies
- Expand your plant knowledge, improve your career and business opportunities in horticulture
- Understand how to use wattles for land rehabilitation and other practical purposes
Wattles can be grown for a range or amenity purposes (eg. land rehabilitation, decorative garden plants, windbreaks etc), timber production, a cut flower, for tanning, as a food (bush tucker plant), etc.
Their flowers are small, grouped in large numbers to create round balls or cylindrical spikes. These balls or spikes normally occur on peduncles (ie: a ball or a cylinder on the end of a stalk). They occur either singly, in pairs or racemes emerging from the axils of the leaves or phyllodes. The tiny flowers each have 4 to 5 sepals, 4 to 5 petals and numerous staemens. The fruit is a leguminous pod, often long. When mature, the pod will open releasing large hard coated seeds from inside.
In most species, there are no leaves. Instead, the plant has leaf like structures (considered to be modified petioles or leaf stalks), called "phyllodes".
Lesson Structure
There are 8 lessons in this course:
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Introduction and Resources.
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Nature and Scope of Acacias
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Plant/Acacia Taxonomy (classification and naming)
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Acacia Ecosystems
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Significant Acacias from Australia, Africa and the Middle East
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Physiology and Botany of Acacias.
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Acacia relatives; and the Order Fabales
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Understanding flower structure of Acacias
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The inflorescence
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Using Botanical terms to describe Acacias
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Foliage characteristics
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Classifying Acacias according to foliage type
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Classifying Acacias according to flower type
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Acacia fruit characteristics (seed pods)
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Culture
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Environmental considerations
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Nutritional considerations
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Acacia Pests and Diseases
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Soil conditions for Acacias
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Typical cultural requirements
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Australian Acacias (review of size, foliage and flowering)
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Weed management
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Soil testing
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Propagation
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Scope of wattle propagation
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Acacia Seed treaments
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Sowing Acacia seeds
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Seed storage
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Acacia cutting propagation
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Transplanting seedlings or cuttings
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Potting up
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Acacias And Their Uses
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Landscape Applications (windbreaks, screens, shrubberies, erosion control, soil enrichment, rock gardens, tubs)
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Plant selection
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Buying the right specimin
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Using Acasias as specimin trees
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Garden Design with Acacias
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Creating landscape affects
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Acacia species for different conditions
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Other Uses For Acacias
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Timber
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Tanning
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Cut Flowers
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Perfumery with Acacias
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Acacias for human food
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Acacias for animal fodder
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Gum Arabic
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Pest & Disease of Acacias
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Nature and scope of Pest and Disease
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Pest and Disease problems detected on Acacias
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Environmental problems
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Special Project
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Problem Based Learning style project
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Plan theestablishment of a collection of Acacias for a specific location.
Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.
Aims
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Describe the way in which Acacias are classified.
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Determine how to find reliable resource information that relates to Acacias
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Describe the physiology of Acacias
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Determine cultural requirements that are common to Acacias
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Determine propagation methods that are commonly applicable to Acacias.
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Describe a variety of commercial uses for Acacias.
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Describe a range of other practical uses for Acacias.
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Identify and recommend treatment for a variety of health problems occurring with Acacias.
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Develop an in depth understanding of one aspect of Acacia Growing.
WHY GROW ACACIAS?
Acacias have more uses than most people realize. The most obvious use is as a garden plant; or perhaps a timber. Acacias are also grown and harvested for a whole range of purposes.
- Did you realize that Gum Arabic comes from Acacias?
- Did you know Acacias can improve soil fertility?
- Did you realize that some African tribes use Acacias as a major food source for livestock?
- Do you realize, some Acacias are used to supply medicines?
- Do you realize native peoples in Australia, Africa and other places eat seeds, flowers, gum and other things harvested from Acacias.
ACACIAS RENAMED?
The scientific name of Acacia was revised by a group of botanists over a period up to 2011, to split it into two genera. Species (163, predominantly from outside Australia) were given the new genus name Vachellia. Despite being accepted by botanists; it remains to be seen how quickly this new genus might be adopted by tradesmen in the horticulture industry and the general public. As a student of Acacias, you should be aware of the change, but also appreciate the fact that many people you talk with may be unaware of what you are talking about if you use the name Vachellia.
FREQUENT QUESTIONS
Why Choose This Course
- Course notes and materials are unique (written by our staff) and up to date (most revised annually) –our graduates are more up to date with what they learn than many other institutions.
- We don’t just present you with information; we also work to help you understand and remember it, develop an ability to apply it in the real world, and build networks with others who work in this field.
- Start any time, study at your own pace, study from anywhere
- Don’t waste time and money traveling to and from classes
- More choices in your assignment work –courses are written to allow you more options to focus on parts of the subject that are of more interest to you.
- Tutors more accessible than many colleges – academics are hard at work in both the UK and Australia, 5 days a week, 16 hours a day, and answering individual queries from students are top priority and always attended to within a day –often within an hour.
- Be treated like an individual –don’t get lost in a crowd of other students. Our tutors interact with you one to one.
- Extra help at no extra cost where needed.. If you find a task you can’t do, we will help you through it or give you another option.
- Support after graduation –We will advise on getting work, starting a business, putting a CV together. We will promote students and their businesses through our extensive profile on the internet. Any graduate who asks will be helped.
How You Study
- When you enroll, we send you an email that explains it all.
- You are given a short orientation video to watch, where our principal introduces you to how the course works, and how you can access all sorts of support services
- You are either given access to your course online, or sent a CD or course materials through the mail (or by courier).
- You work through lessons one by one. Each lesson has at least four parts:
- An aim -which tells you what you should be achieving in the lesson
- Reading -notes written and regularly revised by our academic staff
- Set Task(s) -These are practicals, research or other experiential learning tasks that strengthen and add to what you have been reading
- Assignment -By answering questions, submitting them to a tutor, then getting feedback from the tutor, you confirm that you are on the right track, but more than that, you are guided to consider what you have been studying in different ways, broadening your perspective and reinforcing what you are learning about
- Other - Your work in a course rarely stops at just the above four parts. Different courses and different students will need further learning experiences. Your set task or assignment may lead to other things, interacting with tutors or people in industry, reviewing additional reference materials or something else. We treat every student as an individual and supplement their learning needs as the occasion requires.
- You are given access to and encouraged to use a range of supplementary services including an online student room, including online library; student bookshop, newsletters, social media etc.
- You are provided with a "student manual" which you can refer to if and when needed. It provides a quick solution to most problems that might occur (some people never need to use this; but if you are studying late at night & have a problem, the manual provides a first port of call that can often get you moving again).
Recognition
- ACS is known and highly respected internationally: by employers and academics alike:
- Recognised by International Accreditation and Recognition Council
- ACS has been training people around the world since 1979
- Over 100,000 have now studied ACS courses, across more than 150 countries
- Formal affiliations with colleges in five countries
- A faculty of over 40 internationally renowned academics –books written by our staff used by universities and colleges around the world.
Extra Books or Reference Materials
- The course provides you with everything that you need to complete it successfully.
- Assignments may ask you to look for extra information (eg. by contacting nurseries, visiting gardens or searching the internet), but our school's resources and tutors are always available as a back up. If you hit a "roadblock", we can quickly send you additional information or provide expert advice over the phone or email; to keep you moving in your studies.
- Some students choose to buy additional references, to take their learning beyond what is essential for the course. If a student wants to buy books, we operate an online bookshop offering ebooks written by staff at the school. Student discounts are available if you are studying with us. The range of e books available is being expanded rapidly, with at least one new ebook being written and published by our staff every month. See www.acsebook.com
