Educating for sustainable horticulture
Volume 7 Number 2 - October 2010
French: Vers un curriculum horticole durable
Spanish: Educando un currículo sustentable en horticultura
The creation of
Educating for sustainable horticulture
Volume 7 Number 2 - October 2010
French: Vers un curriculum horticole durable
Spanish: Educando un currículo sustentable en horticultura
The creation of a Sustainable Horticulture course by Meadowlark Botanical Gardens and the Northern Virginia Community College is bringing elements of botanical and ecological training into a programme of traditional horticulture. In this new forum, which contributes to Target 15 of the GSPC, Keith Tomlinson argues that students can consider the ecological implications of their work and ensure that native plants receive more attention in horticultural design and application – particularly in urban settings.
This new course was set up in the spring of 2009, as part of the Horticulture Technology Program at the Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC). This popular two-year course of instruction has produced many trained horticulturists in the Washington DC metropolitan area since 1974. Students carry out coursework in horticultural botany, soils, propagation, landscape design, landscape construction, GIS applications and herbaceous and wood plant identification. Many of the plant identification laboratories use collections at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens (MBG). Several full-time and part-time staff at Meadowbank are NVCC alumni and in 2007 initial discussions between MBG staff and NVCC Horticulture Program began considering a Sustainable Horticulture course that would focus on increasing regional native plant diversity in landscape applications.
Graduates of the NVCC programme work in a diverse array of horticultural settings. Many are independent landscape contractors or work for large commercial nurseries. Some specialize in mass propagation and marketing seasonal crops (poinsettias, chrysanthemums, pansies, fruit trees) and some work in public gardens. Others go on to four-year specialized programmes. With this range of vocational targets, it is clear that providing sustainable horticulture training to this particular student body could have far-reaching impact for conservation in the landscape and nursery setting. There are over 140 community college horticulture programmes in the United States alone.
Former Director of the United States Botanical Garden and NVCC Horticulture Program Head, David Scheid, initiated the idea of a Sustainable Horticulture Course with the Curriculum Advisory Committee and the NVCC Dean of Applied Sciences. MBG staff were recruited to design and teach the course in 2008, and in spring 2009 a 16-week, three-credit course was offered. Enrollment rapidly reached the maximum of 25 students, demonstrating a keen interest in the topic.
Fostering ecological sustainability in the Horticulture Curriculum
Horticultural landscapes in the Mid-Atlantic region of the USA are rich in non-native ornamental species, often creating an aesthetically pleasing scene. They are, however, frequently ecologically barren and even degrading to the environment. Very few ornamental plants are patronized by native insects, creating a biomass deficit at a low trophic level (Tallamy, 2007). In addition, many popular ornamental plants are not ‘ecologically stable’ and rapidly become invasive. In the metropolitan Washington DC area, Bradford pear (Pyrus calleryana), Miscanthus grass (Miscanthus sinensis) and English ivy (Hedera helix) are just three examples. All are widely available in the regional nursery trade and frequently sought by local homeowners and businesses. Thus, the troublesome use of such species must be addressed by this new curriculum without compromising its strong aesthetic element.
Tackling these issues in the classroom setting requires an increased use of botanical, biogeographic and particularly ecological subject matter. This approach is not intended to question the traditional strengths of horticulture programmes, which have hi