A new UF/IFAS Extension online course helps avid gardeners and green industry professionals connect manicured landscapes with biodiversity conservation.
UF/IFAS Extension Online Learning is offering two versions of a new course, Wildlife-Friendly Landscape Management. This eight-module online course, co-taught by Drs. Adam Dale, Jaret Daniels, Rachel Mallinger, and Laura Warner, explores how everyday landscape decisions influence biodiversity where people live, work, and recreate. One version is designed for curious homeowners and avid gardeners. The other is tailored to landscape industry and pest management professionals. Together, the courses offer practical, audience-specific pathways for creating and caring for landscapes that are beautiful, functional, and welcoming to wildlife.
A shared foundation, tailored to different learners
Both course offerings examine the connections among plants, insects, wildlife, people, and landscape management. Through engaging lectures and hands-on experiential activities, participants explore:
- Pollinator ecology and conservation
- Integrated pest and pollinator management
- Wildlife-friendly landscape design and maintenance practices
- The effects of plant selection, site conditions, and pest-management decisions
- The human values and behaviors that shape the landscapes where we live and work
The goal is not to prescribe a single landscape style or provide a simple list of “good” plants. Instead, each course helps learners understand ecological relationships, evaluate management tradeoffs, and make informed decisions appropriate for their own setting, responsibilities, and goals.
For curious homeowners and avid gardeners
The public course is designed for people who want to better understand the living systems just outside their doors. No professional background in ecology or horticulture is required. Participants learn to look more closely at the plants, insects, and wildlife in familiar spaces and consider how plant choices, landscape structure, maintenance practices, and pest-management decisions can support biodiversity without sacrificing beauty or function.
Hands-on activities connect course concepts to observations and choices participants can make in their own yards and communities. By the end of the course, learners will have practical knowledge—and a new perspective on how their everyday decisions shape the places where they live.
Credential: Participants who complete the public course can earn a UF/IFAS Extension certificate of completion.
Learn more or enroll HERE
For landscape and pest management professionals
The professional course is designed for people who design, install, maintain, or protect residential, commercial, and institutional landscapes. This includes landscape, lawn care, horticulture, arboriculture, and pest management professionals who want to strengthen the ecological foundation of their work while continuing to meet expectations for landscape health, appearance, and function.
Course activities connect science with field decisions such as plant and site selection, maintenance timing, pesticide use, integrated pest management, and communication with clients. Participants are encouraged to consider how service standards and client priorities affect biodiversity, explain relevant tradeoffs, and identify practical opportunities to improve landscape outcomes.
Credential: Participants who complete the professional course can earn a certificate of completion and if completed with at least 80%, a Wildlife-friendly Landscape Management Knowledge Badge UF/IFAS micro-credential.
Learn more or enroll HERE
Choose the course that fits your role
The two offerings share a commitment to science-based, thoughtful landscape management, but each speaks directly to the decisions its learners make. Homeowners and gardeners will find an approachable path for observing and improving the landscapes around them. Professionals will find applied tools and perspectives they can use across managed properties and in conversations with clients.
Whether you care for one yard or hundreds of properties, your choices can help determine which organisms find food and shelter, how pests are managed, and how people experience the landscapes around them. Wildlife-Friendly Landscape Management offers a practical place to begin—or to deepen the work you are already doing.
Registration is open from September 1 – October 14, and students have until December 14 to complete the course. Enrollment is capped at 100 people in the public course and 25 people in the professional course. These courses will be offered again beginning in January 2027.
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