Written by guest contributor, Shane Werner

This Spring semester has been one of the most important for the horticulture club in recent years, with some of the largest events and highest attendance that the club has seen post-pandemic. The club has been expanding and we enjoy sharing our love of horticulture with everyone. As the club has grown, it has added more executive members, myself included, totaling 12 members on our leadership team. This is my first semester as secretary for the Horticulture Club and it has been an astonishment jumping into the madness of the semester. Nonetheless, the semester was a success, producing over 3,700 plants in total, hosting our regular plant labs and workshops, and continuing one of our largest events, The 2nd Annual Spring Plant Fair.

The highlight of the semester and largest event for our club this year was the annual Spring Plant Fair, located at the massive Stock Pavilion. We featured over 2,000 plants for sale on the Saturday of Mom’s Weekend, April 13th, and accommodated over 1,800 attendees. At the fair, our club offered annual flowers, perennials, different herb plants, vegetable plants, and much more, and worked in collaboration with nine other organizations. Every plant at the fair was grown in-house at the Horticulture Club greenhouse on campus, except for plants offered by other organizations. We also hosted educational workshops, a mystery seed challenge, and a Floral Frenzy Plant Contest. It was all made possible by the 30+ horticulture club volunteers who gave their time to arrange and set up the event.

Beyond the plant fair, the semester’s workshops, plant sales, and labs ran smoothly. We started the semester with a Valentine’s Day event selling small vases and roses to make bouquets. We nearly reached our 40 person capacity. Next, we hosted a social study-time event before midterms in conjunction with a succulent plant sale. We sold half of our succulents at the time and, more importantly, spent time together as a club and met new people. Also, during the event we were allowed access to the Plant Conservatory to relax and decompress. Following this, we hosted a micro-greens workshop where we sold small microgreen kits. And to end the semester, we organized a Carnivorous Plant Lab, where we sold carnivorous plants with 35 attendees.

Overall, The semester was a major success not only in terms of selling plants but also in raising club attendance and growing plants. In total, the club hosted 4 events outside of the plant sale, sowed 10,000+ seeds, and raised 3,700+ plants across over 110 cultivars. We are happy with our work for the semester and look forward to hosting more events in the upcoming school year.