By: Laura Parrish, Chaney Merritt, Grace Chung, and Daionna Thompson

From left to right: Grace Chung, Laura Parrish, Chaney Merritt, and Daionna Thompson

What does agriculture and art have in common? Besides starting with the letter “a”, they both are elements of aesthetic horticulture. Aesthetic horticulture is the aesthetic cultivation of ornamental plants, fruits, vegetables, and flowers in gardens and landscapes. It combines agriculture, environmental design, botany, and the visual arts. In the Governor’s School for Agriculture, aesthetic horticulture was offered as an elective. This particular class was focused on floral design, which all of us selected and enjoyed.

At the beginning of our aesthetic horticulture class, we learned about a variety of different arrangements and critiqued them. Further into the class we focused more on the arrangement we were going to be making later on, the mound. The mound arrangement is a mass arrangement used as a centerpiece for a round table. It consisted of two different colors of mums, with one dominating color creating the dimensions, accompanied by leatherleaf fern as greenery. Our various arrangements, as seen above, will be used at the Gov. School Banquet on Friday night.

The first day was very informational for the group. The professor gave us a break down of the color wheel chart and principles and elements of art. The second day was more hands on, and the group was very excited to learn how to snip the stem of the leatherleaf fern with two types of shears. The final day, the group got to make a mound floral design.. It was very enjoyable because we actually were able to create something for everyone to see and we can keep our creation.

Here is a video showing how to create a mound arrangement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY3DNWW8HUo