Re: Bittersweet now hort ed

I grew up in rural [this may be hard to believe] Los Angeles, Auralie. Horticulture, botany, agriculture were major parts of our educational curricula. All of the classrooms in my grammar school [aka elementary school] had large garden plot where we grew vegetables and experimented with propagation--seeds, cuttings, grafting, air and ground layering, and so on. Luther Burbank was a major California icon, and most folks were dirt poor [many of them Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" Okies], so the schools tried to educate the parents about peculiarities of growing vegetables in California, also.


On Monday, December 6, 2004, at 07:32 PM, Aplfgcnys@aol.com wrote:

Andrea, there are garden clubs and garden clubs.  Some are nice
and thoughtful, and some are just the opposite.  On the whole I have
found them to be really good people, but its the few rotten apples
that spoil things for everyone - just like any other group.  This
business of ignorance about horticulture is one I work at all
the time.  In the Horticulture School series I run I always include
one session on basic botany - and am always amazed at the
complete ignorance of some people.  Where were they in
high school?  I once said one of the courses was just high-school
biology, and several declared they had never had biology in
high school.  I couldn't believe it.  If I was taught botany in a very
small-town school in the rural South in the 40s, I wonder what
they were teaching in the next few decades in the supposedly
more sophisticated Northeast.
Auralie

In a message dated 12/06/2004 6:57:23 PM Eastern Standard Time,
hodgesaa@earthlink.net writes:
Hmmm, guess I never thought of that issue. I have to say, I gave a
presentation at a garden club meeting a couple of weeks ago and was truly
amazed at how many plants they were NOT familiar with. That and the fact
that I busted my butt getting out there in the middle of the work day and
they kept me waiting for 30 minutes while they ate tea cakes and drank
cider. I wanted to explode. You told me to be here at 10:00 AM, so WHY am I
standing around until 10:30? I was not happy.
Andrea H
Beaufort

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Island Jim
Southwest Florida
27.0 N, 82.4 W
Zone 10a
Minimum 30 F [-1 C]

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