Horticulture is the science or art of cultivating fruits, vegetables, flowers, or ornamental plants.

Etymologically, "horticulture" can be broken down into two Latin words: hortus (garden) andcultus (tilling). As William L. George explains in his definition of horticulture: "Horticulture involves five areas of study. These areas are floriculture (includes production and marketing of floral crops), landscape horticulture (includes production, marketing and maintenance of landscape plants), olericulture (includes production and marketing of vegetables), pomology (includes production and marketing of fruits), and postharvest physiology which involves maintaining quality and preventing spoilage of horticultural crops." Scholars have been writing about horticulture for centuries, including Greco-Roman scholars. Among the Romans, Cato the Elder, Varro, Columella, Virgil and Pliny the Elder stand out. Virgil, better known for his Aeneid, set down his reflections on horticulture in the Georgics. As a poet, his work on the subject is appreciated more for the way he related the information rather than for the factual content.

How to Start a Career In Gardening & Landscaping

For those who love spending hours in the garden, and get great satisfaction from planting, pruning, and taking care of flowers and houseplants, a career in gardening or landscaping might be an ideal way to turn a gardening hobby in to something more substantial. Gardening and landscaping are both particularly good industries for hobbyists to consider, since there are typically little or no requirements for entry level jobs, and most newcomers learn rapidly on the job. In addition to a "green thumb", the skills required typically include a good knowledge of plants, trees, popular flowering plants andvegetable crops; a basic understanding of gardening and landscaping tools; as well as the physical dexterity to perform the job well. The gardening industry offers a range of opportunities for growing a career. There are groundskeepers, landscapers, landscape architects, arborists, horticulturists, and greens keepers, just to name a few. Many in these industries are employed by companies, but a strong number are also small business owners who have gone on to open their own home garden centers, florist shops or landscaping service companies. Along with gaining experience, a degree can also be useful, especially for more specialized jobs like arborist or landscape architect. The average wage for most landscaping and gardening jobs ranges from about $10 an hour for entry level jobs, on up to $18 an hour for more senior positions. Overall, those who find success in these positions report job satisfaction that is the envy of most industries. And there's more good news for those planning a career in gardening or landscaping: projected growth is expected to be almost double the national average in the coming years, as the trend for going green becomes more popular among families and local communities worldwide.

Formal Gardens
Worthington, MAhttp://www.hilltowntreeandgarden.com/portfolio-worthington.html

Without the informal design features of the New England cottage garden style, landscaping formal gardens aims to balance symmetry and refinement with the experience of the landscape. We have professionally maintained these manicured gardens for many years, and they have continually exceeded the owner's expectations. All hardscaping was done by Sean Noonan of Dolmen Stoneworks.

Read what this client had to say about this project.

One of the key features of the landscape, the clipped boxwood hedges give a sense of harmony, geometric order, and pleasing structure.

The birdbath in the center, surrounded by a ring of ornamental but hardy lavender, creates a focal point for the viewer's eye. The stone walkway separates the landscape into four quadrants.

The east garden stone wall is sunken into the hillside. This, along with the three other walls and the flat flagstone, creates a heat sink micro-climate where plants are able to thrive in a cold windswept condition. The homeowner is responsible for this stroke of design brilliance.

The evergreen backdrop gives the sunken garden privacy from the tennis court.

This copper beech was planted three years ago. It was brought in from Boston with an 11' diameter root ball. It has transplanted very well. Seeds for the native columbine tree were scattered at the base the previous spring.

Shrub Border Two Years After Installation. The shrubs used in this border are annabelle hydrangea, red twig dogwood and ninebark.

Return to Landscape Design Portfolio Index

Horticulturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horticulture
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

8 April 2011 at 22:52.

Hybrid tomatoes growth by hydroponic methods on straw bales

Horticulture is the industry and science of plant cultivation including the process of preparing soil for the planting of seeds, tubers, or cuttings.[1] Horticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of plant propagation and cultivation, crop production, plant breedingand genetic engineering, plant biochemistry, and plant physiology. The work

involves fruits, berries, nuts, vegetables, flowers, trees,shrubs, and turf. Horticulturists work to improve crop yield, quality, nutritional value, and resistance to insects, diseases, and environmental stresses. Horticulture usually refers to gardening on a smaller scale, while agriculture refers to the large-scale cultivation of crops.[2]
Contents
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1 Etymology 2 Areas of study 3 Anthropology 4 Gallery 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

[edit]Etymology

The word horticulture is modeled after agriculture, and comes from the Latin hortus "garden"[3] and cultra "cultivation", from cultus, the perfect passive participle of the verb col "I cultivate".[4]
[edit]Areas

of study

Horticulture involves eight areas of study, which can be grouped into two broad sections - ornamentals and edibles:

Arboriculture is the study of, and the selection, planting, care, and removal of, individual trees, shrubs, vines, and other perennial woody plants. Floriculture includes the production and marketing of floral crops. Landscape horticulture includes the production, marketing and maintenance of landscape plants. Olericulture includes the production and marketing of vegetables. Pomology includes the production and marketing of fruits. Viticulture includes the production and marketing of grapes. Oenology includes all aspects of wine and winemaking. Postharvest physiology involves maintaining the quality of and preventing the spoilage of horticultural crops.

Horticulturists can work in industry, government or educational institutions or private collections. They can be cropping systems engineers, wholesale or retail business managers, propagators and tissue culture specialists (fruits, vegetables, ornamentals, and turf), crop inspectors, crop production advisers, extension specialists, plant breeders, research scientists, and of course, teachers. Disciplines which complement horticulture include biology, botany, entomology, chemistry, mathematics, genetics, physiology, stati stics, computer science, and communications, garden design,planting design. Plant science and horticulture courses include: plant materials, plant propagation, tissue culture, crop production, post-harvest handling, plant breeding, pollination management, crop nutrition, entomology, plant pathology, economics, and business. Some careers in horticultural science require a masters (MS) or doctoral (PhD) degree. Horticulture is practiced in many gardens, "plant growth centres" and nurseries. Activities in nurseries range from preparing seeds and cuttings to growing fully mature plants. These are often sold or transferred to ornamental gardens or market gardens.
[edit]Anthropology

See also: Hoe-farming Horticulture has a very long history. The study and science of horticulture dates all the way back to the times of Alexander the Great, and has been going on ever since, with present day horticulturists such as Freeman S. Howlett, the revolutionary horticulturist. [5] The origins of horticulture lie in the transition of human communities from nomadic hunter-gatherers to sedentary or semi-sedentary horticultural communities, cultivating a variety of crops on a small scale around their dwellings or in specialized plots visited occasionally during migrations from one area to the next (such as the "milpa" or maize field of Mesoamerican cultures).[6] In the Pre-Columbian Amazon Rainforest, natives are believed to have used biochar to enhance soil productivity by smoldering plant waste.[7]European settlers called it Terra Preta de Indio.[8] In forest areas such horticulture is often carried out in swiddens ("slash and burn" areas).[9] A characteristic of horticultural communities is that useful trees are often to be found planted around communities or specially retained from the natural ecosystem. Horticulture primarily differs from agriculture in two ways, firstly it generally encompasses a smaller scale of cultivation, using small plots of mixed crops rather than

large fields of single crops. Secondly horticultural cultivations generally include a wide variety of crops, even including fruit trees with ground crops. Agricultural cultivations however as a rule focus on one primary crop. In pre-contact North America the semisedentary horticultural communities of the Eastern Woodlands (growing maize, squash and sunflower) contrasted markedly with the mobile hunter-gatherercommunities of the Plains people. In Central America, Maya horticulture involved augmentation of the forest with useful trees such as papaya, avocado, cacao, ceiba and sapodilla. In the cornfields, multiple crops were grown such as beans (using cornstalks as supports), squash, pumpkins and chilli peppers, in some cultures tended mainly or exclusively by women.[10]
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