Re: hort.net moving, part II (LONG)

In a message dated 08/24/2006 11:57:55 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
Cersgarden@aol.com writes:
  Speaking of much to do, I have my last scheduled garden tour tomorrow 
and must get to the garden before I can tomatoes again.   Tomorrow we have a 
one 
day refresher for Landscape Critics and Garden Consultants with a tour of my 
garden at the end of the day.   I assume it will be evaluated by the group.   
This is the first time we have had a one day opportunity to do this.   I am 
refreshing for LC which will be my masters qualifier.   I will be refreshing 
for 
GC in Sept.   We have attendees from several surrounding states.   Auralie 
you will be interested in this I am sure.
     Ceres
Definitely, Ceres.  I assume you are refering to the National Garden Clubs
courses.  I am neither a Landscape Consultant nor a Garden Consultant
though I took three of the Landscape courses some years back.  Had to
miss the last one for some reason, and there wasn't a course in our end 
of the state that i could catch up on easily.  
I m a bit at odds with the Garden Studies courses, since New York State
has its own Horticulture Schools system, of which I have been chairman
for a long time. New York State began this series in the 60s because it
was felt that National Council (Now National Garden Clubs) treated 
horticulture like an unloved step-child.  The information in Flower Show
Schools and Symposiums was often poor and sometimes just plain
incorrect.  A speaker at one of these courses has to be qualified by
National - submit an outline, meet various requirements - in one topic,
but once qualified, may speak on any other topic.   I remember some
years back I flew to Denver for a Symposium.  The horticulture speaker
was a specialist in Cannas, and probably knew all there was to know
about Cannas, but the topic was Daffodils, and I knew more about
daffs than she did.
Anyway, in our NY school, we use local specialists who know local
conditions.  The title of the system is Horticulture School for Judges
and Exhibitors, but we try to put the emphasis in exhibitors, though
there is a procedure for becoming a NYS Horticulture Judge, which
will get you nothing, since National now doesn't accept experts on
a judging panel, as it once did.  However, our courses have been 
accredited as refreshers for Garden Study.  We try to give three or
four types of plants and one session of basic horticultural information
in each course, and in each of the plant sessions, we end with a
practice judging and point-scoring practice so everyone knows just
what the ideal specimen would be.  We try to have plant society
people where it is possible.  Years ago, National followed plant
society guidelines for judging horticulture, but some eight or ten
years ago they went to an oversimplified general scale of points that
applies to everything.  Experienced judges can handle this, but the
younger judges just have no basis for comparisons.

I realize this is far more than you wanted to know - I've been at
this game far too long.
Auralie

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