Courses
Most courses in the department are taught on a regular basis to provide ease in scheduling. Our courses promote active learning through laboratories, filed trips, undergraduate student research, and activities that encourage learning. Our department's service course excites and trains students in home horticulture and laboratory sections/courses of core horticulture curriculum courses.
The horticulture curriculum is flexible and designed to permit students to obtain a B.S. degree in horticulture by completing a science-based curriculum. Requirements include a minimum of 37 mathematic, physical science and biological science credits. English, speech, social sciences, humanities, and electives provide for liberal arts educational components.
A minimum of thirty credits of horticulture is required and allows students to obtain a commodity emphasis (landscape horticulture, greenhouse production and management, fruit and vegetable production and management, nursery management, public garden management and administration, planting design and installation, turfgrass science and management, horticulture science and/or horticultural communications and public education) and a well-rounded horticulture background. A science option allows students to prepare for graduate school, but students are competitive for graduate school when graduating from any of the other eight options.
Dr. William Graves describing one of the trees (Japanese Tree Lilac) to his Horticulture 240 class Fall 2007.
Students work together to complete a project for Horticulture 444 (Landscape Construction) Fall 2005
Dr. Ann Marie VanDerZanden's Landscape Construction Class Project Fall 2005
Rose Rollenhagen with her Horticulture 434 Greenhouse Crop Production I Lab Class
Hort 340 Class Experience in Minnesota Fall 2006
Dr. Graves and his Hort 340 class (Woody Landscape Plants) recently took advantage of fantastic autumnal weather during a two-day field trip to the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, area. Primary destinations included the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, the St. Paul campus of the University of Minnesota, and nearby public parks and residential landscapes. Our hosts, Dr. Stan Hokanson, Dr. Jason Smith, and Steve McNamara, helped students learn of plants adapted to Minnesota's climate and of efforts at the University of Minnesota to select and breed new landscape plants for northern North America.
Bryce Frost inspects leaf at arboretum
Undergraduate Student Matt Helgeson Laminates Herbarium Samples to Last for Decades
Matt Helgeson has been working for Dr. Graves since last year on various projects. Dr. Graves had this idea of making laminated herbarium samples for students in his woody plant class to study for ID quizzes and tests. Matt took Dr. Graves' class as a sophomore, so understood the importance of having actual samples to study. It is known that real live samples that you can hold in your hand and examine are probably the best way to study, but it was always a hastle to routinely collect the samples and keep them looking good in jars of water for more than a couple weeks. The herbarium samples that Matt has made are probably the next best thing and they should last for decades.
The majority of the 300+ plants were all on campus so it was really convenient to collect all the samples. It was a little tricky to find all the plants, because in some cases there are only one or two specimens on campus. Once Matt collected them he pressed them flat and put them in a drier for about a week to remove all the moisture. After that he took them into the lab, made labels and then laminated them onto special paper with a laminating press. Matt said, "So far I think students have liked studying them." If anyone would like to freshen up on their ID they should be up on the wall for the remainder of the semester.
Matt is a senior this year with an emphasis in nursery management. After graduating he will most likely be going to graduate school. If he does not pursue graduate school, he plans tofind a job with a wholesale nursery. Over the past few summers he hasdone a couple internships. As a sophomore he interned for Acres Group in the Chicagoland area. They are a design/build and maintenance landscape company. The past summer he interned at Bailey Nurseries in St. Paul. Matt said that the internships proved to be a great way to get some experience and have helped him figure out where he wants to go with his career.
