Overview

This three-week course is designed to strengthen your understanding of the natural systems that shape successful gardens. It is for gardeners of all experience levels who want to better understand how plants interact with their environment and how ecological factors influence growth, productivity, and resilience. Throughout the course, you’ll explore three core areas: the garden as an ecosystem, soil health, and climate and site conditions. You’ll learn how biodiversity supports a more balanced garden system and how plant classification and beneficial insects fit into that system. You’ll examine soil as a living system by identifying its physical, biological, and chemical components, understanding how each supports plant growth, and reviewing basic soil test results to assess soil quality. You’ll also study how climate, weather, temperature, sunlight, hardiness zones, and microclimates influence plant selection, placement, and timing in the garden. While developed for northern climates, the principles in this course are broadly applicable and can be adapted to a wide range of growing conditions.

Syllabus

Garden ecology and biodiversity

This module explores the garden as a living ecosystem made up of many interconnected components—plants, animals, microorganisms, and non-living factors like soil, sunlight, and water. Each element influences the others, creating a dynamic balance that determines the garden’s overall health. By understanding how these relationships work, you’ll begin to see why plant diversity and ecological balance are key to building resilient, productive garden systems. You’ll also be introduced to plant families, an essential concept that helps explain how plants function and interact within ecosystems. By the end of this week, you will be able to explain how the components of an ecosystem interact at the garden scale, describe the role of plant diversity in ecosystem stability, and identify major plant families and their ecological significance.

Healthy soil, healthy plants

This module explores the world beneath our feet—the soil ecosystem. Though it may look simple, soil is full of life and activity that support plant growth and ecosystem balance. In natural systems, the relationships between organisms above and below ground develop over time into stable, interconnected networks. In gardens, soils are often disturbed or altered, so they might take extra effort to become healthy and functional. You’ll learn how soil supports plant life, what makes soil healthy, how growing media in containers differ from natural soils, and why soil testing is an important tool for understanding soil quality. By the end of this week, you will be able to describe the physical, biological, and chemical components of soil, explain how soil health influences plant growth, compare natural soils to container growing media, and interpret basic soil test information to assess soil quality.

Know your garden site

This module focuses on how climate, weather, temperature, and sunlight shape plant growth and garden planning. You’ll learn how larger climate patterns and local conditions, such as microclimates and hardiness zones, influence what plants can thrive in a given area. We’ll look at how temperature affects plants—especially how perennials handle cold through acclimation and dormancy, and how annuals respond to frost. You’ll also explore how to interpret frost dates and plant tolerance levels to make informed choices about timing and selection. Finally, we’ll examine how sunlight exposure and intensity influence plant needs and placement within a growing space.By the end of this week, you will be able to explain how climate, weather, and light conditions affect plant growth; identify microclimates and hardiness zones; distinguish between frost-tolerant and frost-tender plants; and apply these concepts to make informed decisions about plant selection and placement.