Prompted Blog #1 What is Horticulture? by Lucy Liu

  Most of students came into college with an idea about what they want to study. Some of them are really sure about their major, others are still wondering for the decision making. It’s totally fine with an undecided major at this time, but an important thing is that, we should all think deeply about the field we’re interested in and get some information before we decided to choose the major.

  Right now I’m major in horticulture. I know this is not a really common major that people would think of and many students might have no idea what is that all about.  In fact, I came to this field basically only by the strong interest I have for all the plants and the enthusiasm of designing.

  My preconceptions for the horticulture major is that, this is a course that teaching student about the species, habitat and characteristic of different plants, and it also contains some training of basic drawing of visual aesthetic in order to make  good design of gardens and street views. I thought to work as a landscaper is to improve our living environment which brings people more comfortable and more enjoyable places to learn and live. Students that study in this field should all love plants and their delicate fragrance, willing to bring these animate and joyful life to every corner of the world.

   The authoritative introductory textbook I found for my major is The Biology of Horticulture by Preece and Read. This book is  useful for the beginner of this field which has many information to explain the basic conception of horticulture, including the topics such as what is horticulture, what do we learn in this major, and how will we use horticulture in the real life, etc. Though this book, I learned that it’s not as simple as I thought. Horticulture is science, art, technology, and business involved in intensive plant cultivation for human use. Not only for landscaping, there is still several big part learning about planting vegetables and fruit, rare plant production, and scientific research about the soil science. People in this field need to know the different functions for different plants in order to produce food and medicine or identify their phytotoxin and traits. The requirement of nutrition and edaphic condition is also important to learn. Besides that, for landscape design, students don’t just sit in the studio and work on the drawings, and appreciate the garden sketch and famous examples  for all around the world. We need to actually go outside and put our hands into the soil, to feel the plants and grow them, be out for working in the sun for long time. It’s certainly more challenging, but also more fun when I get to know deeper in this field.

  The truth I already knew is that, study in horticulture major is not going to be a easy journey. For me as a international students, it’s really difficult to remember and to understand all kinds of brand new terminologies. However, if you want to study well, every major is challenging at some points. The things we should do, is just find what we truly want ourselves to be, and work hard for the goal.
  This book is very effective to me, it makes me be more clear what is this major I chose all about and direct me the right path I should go in the future studies. Nonetheless, it’s a good resource for a beginner but not enough, it’s important to go to classes, take lecture notes and do more practice in greenhouses so we can be more confident in this major.