Horticulture involves the knowledge of growing fruits, vegetables, garden plants and flowers. The location could be a small garden at home or may even be a part of the house. Some people learn horticulture to create a beautiful garden of their own as a hobby or way to make the home look more appealing.
How To Become A Horticulturist?
Okay you flower addicts, nature lovers and freeloaders, sit on the couch and listen up. It’s time for therapy! The experts have confirmed that gardening, my favorite addiction, is therapeutic. Hallelujah! “Horticultural Therapy” is a multidisciplinary program of study involving fields such as horticulture, psychology, landscape architecture, education, gerontology, sociology and urban planning.
Here’s a shallow example of HT at work in my superficial life: Many moons ago, I worked with the actor James Woods on a film shoot. Let’s just say he was “high maintenance.” I came home on Friday nights in tears, mumbling obscenities as I rehashed “another week at the office” to my kind, patient boyfriend. Saturday mornings, I couldn’t speak till I’d cleansed the demons. I would spend two hours sitting in my garden, alone, meticulously and fiercely pulling weeds, in a silent ethereal trance. Monday morning I’d be ready to face the egos again . . .
Classically evolved from the Latin words ‘hortus’ ( garden plant ) and ‘cultura’ ( culture ), horticulture is the culture of cultivating. But at the same time it is a huge field of study. Horticulture is heavily dependent on three broad areas of knowledge : Science, Business, & Art. An appropriate balance and interaction of these three components is necessary for success in Horticulture.
“Rare indeed are the fields that can claim such a dependence on all three broad areas of knowledge!” remarked Prof. Bailey L. H., the famous American Horticulture scholar. Horticulture involves the study of growing crops, plants, herbs, turfs, shrubs, trees, fruits, flowers, vegetables, grains, cereals, or anything that falls in this genre. It is a science of plant propagation and crop production. Involved are the topics of botany and agriculture that study physiology, biology and chemistry of plants and trees.