POSTED BY PEGGY: There are lots of ways to get smart about plants. Over the years I have learned from family friends, co-workers and customers. I’ve also taken classes at Sugar Creek, The Missouri Botanical Garden and the Horticulture Program at Meramec Community College. In fact, I just completed my Certificate of Proficiency in Horticulture. (Hip Hip Hooray!!) I started in 2000 with Introduction to Botany and have taken one or two classes each semester ever since. The classes are fun and informative. I found going to school as an adult fascinating. My classmates worked in the field as turf-heads, at country clubs and golf courses, at retail plant nurseries and at plant growing facilities around town. They came to class with dirt under their nails and a special gleam in their eye.
The program at Meramec teaches students “the science and art of horticulture through a combination of classroom lecture, laboratory practice and on-the-job training”. Students are trained in the college’s greenhouses, outdoor nursery facilities and labs. There are three levels of education you can pursue:
Certificate of Proficiency in Horticulture is a 39-credit-hour program consisting of core horticulture courses, with options in Landscape Design, Turfgrass Management or Plant Production and Management. These are excellent classes that deal with identification of trees, shrubs and perennials, plant propagation, plant pests (insects, disease and weeds) and soils. This is what you go for if you aren’t hung up on getting an associates degree but you want in-depth information on plants.
Associate in Applied Science Degree in Horticulture is a 66- to 67-credit-hour program . This one is the whole enchilada. It involves not only horticulture classes, but English, math, business, accounting, psychology and physical education. Graduates are trained for entry-level jobs with state and city park departments, nurseries, landscape contracting firms, golf courses and retail sales. You don’t have to have a degree to get some of these jobs, just an interest in plants, a little home gardening experience and a few classes under your belt.
Certificate of Specialization in Horticulture is a 12-credit-hour program in which students get on overview of all the core horticulture classes. These are excellent one credit introduction classes. The teachers work in the field and you really learn a lot without getting “too much information”. I started out with a few of these classes, then later when back at picked up the bigger credit classes.
To get started with any of these programs, you need to start with a basic botany class, aka Introduction to Horticulture. This class deals with the biological aspects of plant life, including cell structure, anatomy, photosynthesis, and with the factors that affect plant growth, including light, temperature, moisture, soils and the essential elements. Part of the class is lecture, where you take notes. The other part of the class is called “lab”. This is the fun part where you get to do hands on experiments with plants in the “laboratory”.
It’s not too late to sign up for Spring ‘09 classes, they start Jan 20th. Intro to Horticulture is being offered during the day and the evening. You can see a full schedule of classes being offered here. Click on Online class schedule. On the next page select Credit Spring 2009 and Begin Class Search. On the next page select HRT-Horticulture and All Campuses. Scroll to the bottom and select Search Class. You will see a list of all Horticulture classes that are being offered this season. You can also see how many people have enrolled for each class and how many spots are still open.
http://www.stlcc.edu/Admissions_and_Registration/Class_Schedules.html?textlink
Get a full overview of the Meramec Horticulture Program here:
http://www.stlcc.edu/Programs/Horticulture/
The Missouri Botanical Garden is also offering classes for Spring ‘09. Their class schedule won’t be available until Jan 19th, but you can check it out here:
https://www.mobot.org/iebms/coe/coe_p1_all.aspx?oc=10&cc=ADULTEDBYTOP
Sugar Creek Gardens will also offer FREE gardening classes on all the latest gardening trends, new shrubs and perennials and how to grow all of our favorite plants. Check out our Spring 2009 Garden Party Dates. Our Spring ‘ 09 classes will be posted soon, so check back in a few weeks.
http://www.sugarcreekgardens.com/special_events_and_classes.htm
1 Comment
December 29, 2008 at 7:53 am
great idea for a post. I wished I lived in Missouri so I could just link to it, but I will do one in the future for folk in south east Pennsylvania.