Giving EC the gr

Celine West
Staff Writer
@ECCUnionCeline
Intent upon educating students
on sustainable horticultural prac-
tices, EC students have recently
come together to form the EC
Horticulture Club.
"Their goal is to educate, to
>ractice sustainable horticultural
practices, and to learn more about
growing edibles in the landscape,"
Ron LaFond, environmental hor-
ticulture supervisor, said. "There
is a big push for that."
While demand for a horticul-
ture club is nothing new, it's only
recently that students came to-
gether to organize one.
"I had students in the past say,
'You know, there should be a hor-
ticulture club,' so I say to them,
'Start one,"' LaFond said. "It's a
student club, so I don't think it's
up to faculty to start them, but I'm
there as a faculty advisor."
The club's foremost priority is
education. The students want for
guest speakers to come in and
hope to go on a variety of field
trips.
We're going to have speakers
from different backgrounds come
in, from chemistry to environ-
mental restoration, Samson Lo-
zano, 21, earth and biological sci-
ences major, said. We want people
to see this field as a career option.
Among the most basic lessons
the club hopes to teach is the abil-
ity to grow plants, regardless of
space.
"We find a lot of people who
say, 'We don't have a lot of space,"'
Reginald Fagan, 56, horticulture
major, said. "You can grow stuff
in containers. You can grow verti-
cal gardens. We want to break that
barrier."
The club's members also aspire
to change peoples' relationships
to their food.
"We can get people recon-
nected back to growing and hav-
ing control over their food," Fagan
said. "We want to give people a
sense of stewardship."
should, in some way, feel a con-
nection, a responsibility," he add-
ed. "If it's not growing vegetables
then maybe it's growing flowers."
Fagan hopes students feel wel-
come and comfortable approach-
ing the club about horticultural
questions.
"This is a campus place where
you can come and learn certain
thirigs," Fagan _said. ::. We're mak-
ing sure there's an area where
people in wheelchairs can come
and work. We want to make sure
we integrate other groups, like
students with disabilities, and the
other clubs."
Among the events currently
planned by the club will be an
Earth Day event.
"We're going to put on an Earth
Day program and have short,
one-day courses for the students
and the community," Fagan said.
"We're going to have compost
workshops, and a whole array of
workshops and vendors. The kick
off is going to be on April 22."
While the club is still growing
in its early stages, it hopes that
such events and a positive reputa-
tion will aid recruitment.
"In forming the club, we are re-
lying heavily on word. of mouth,"
Lozano said. "We created an
email account and a facebook
page, and we asked horticulture
clubs of past times. We were also
at Club Rush and we passed out
fliers."
The efforts seem to be paying
off, and Lozano only expects their
membership to grow.
"We have around twenty peo-
ple and within a few months we
expect there to be more," Lozano
said. "Some of our groundskeep-
ers are honorary members. They
have been a big help to us.
In the end, the club is focused
upon spreading very basic, horti-
cultural ideas.
"A lot of my students are back-
yard gardeners," LaFond said.
"They try to grow edibles and
that's a lot of what they are trying
to push in the club - growing and
using sustainable practices."
"Every citizen on this planet
~ ~
the green 0
ABOVE: Horticulture club found
er Reginald Fagan (left) and club
member Samson Lozano (right)
tend to plants at the environmen-
tal horticulture facility. Fagan and
Lozano are members of the newly-
founded horticulture club.
LEFT: Located between lot F and
the former Murdock Stadium, the
environmental horticulture facility
provides a place for students and
club members to get hands-on ex-
perience growing plants.
Photos by: John Fordiani/ Union