The Future looks Green
Behind Barrington High School is a classroom made of glass. This well-lit classroom is the high school’s generously-sized greenhouse, an experimental station and botanical springboard for students interested in horticulture. Some students, including the horticulture program’s current teacher, John Ardente, find themselves in this unique classroom while in high school. There, they are busy cultivating horticultural interests – ones that grow into everything from outdoor summer landscaping jobs to careers that bring them back to this greenhouse.
In our class, we do a lot of growing,” horticulture teacher John Ardente said, as he pointed to several healthy quart-sized pots of Indian tobacco the students had grown as a gift to a Lakota Reservation in South Dakota. Ardente teaches “Introduction to Horticulture Science,” a one-credit elective that orients students to applied biology, emphasizing horticulture, agricultural, and natural resources. This class also covers botany, plant growth, soils and fertilizers, plant propagation, the uses of plants for holidays, and the naming, planting, and caring for trees and shrubs. It’s an environment where more than just the plants find growth.
Ardente understands how BHS students enjoy this program that lets them grow things. He graduated from Barrington High School in 1995, and was so inspired by the horticulture science class taught by his teacher, Carl Reed, that he went to Iowa State University to pursue a bachelor’s degree in horticulture with a minor in design, followed by a bachelor’s in biology education from Northern Iowa University. Ardente also received two master’s degrees focusing on educational administration and leadership. When Reed retired in 2002, Ardente was ready to begin cultivating a love for horticulture that Reed had imparted to him.
Students in the program raise and sell everything from chrysanthemums to poinsettias, Easter lilies, vegetable plants, and annual flowers such as impatiens, begonias, and zinnias. “There’s always stuff to do in the greenhouse,” says junior Daniel Durband, who arrives at 6:50 a.m. every day. Horticulture is more than plants and dirt for these students. “It’s a life you’re raising,” says senior Adam Maxfield, looking with pride at the trays and containers of plants surrounding him in the greenhouse. Maxfield, one of the co-founders of the horticulture club at Barrington High School, beams as he talks about the horticulture program and where it is taking him.
Maxfield grew up gardening indoors and out. He has a spider plant that has been with him for more than 13 years, a garden in his backyard that is three years his junior, and an aquarium in his room that he has converted and operated as a hydroponic garden. In 2009, he added an 18-foot by three foot side garden to his family’s home and is now dreaming of a greenhouse.
This past year, Maxfield had the opportunity to teach 5th graders about biodomes through a University of Illinois internship and serve as a lab assistant to his teacher, Ardente. Maxfield plans to study Agricultural Science at College of DuPage, then move on to Illinois State University to complete a bachelor’s degree in Horticultural Education to share his passion with others. “Kids need to realize that food comes from a plant,” Maxfield said. Horticulture Club co-founder Daniel Durband concurs. Durband, a senior this fall at BHS, has been mowing lawns since he was 8 and has been a part of the landscape maintenance crew at Willow Creek Community Church for a few years.
Durband plans to serve as a lab assistant for Horticultural Science during the 2010-2011 school year and is considering careers in landscape maintenance and landscape architecture. “I really like seeing everything through the seasons,” Durband said. He values the experience he has received both in school and through his work on the church grounds. “I like working with different types of people and love the feedback I get when a project is done.”
Graduate Reed Benkendorf, a Horticulture Science student and Horticulture Club member, has done landscape work for three summers. He offers his sentiments as he removes dead flowers from zinnias in the greenhouse. Benkendorf , a vegetarian, took the Horticultural Science course this past year because he wanted to grow fruits and vegetables. When he was asked to design a garden for a class project, the quiet plant composter created a plan for an organically-based permaculture garden. Sustainable agriculture and sustainable ecology are his passion and will be the focus of his studies at Evergreen State College. Watching plants grow makes “you just feel satisfied,” he said.
Growing to Fruition
It is satisfaction and accomplishment that propels horticultural science students at BHS to venture from the classroom to careers in the field.
In 2006, Keith Kazmier, a BHS senior, thought he would pursue a degree in architecture until he took the horticulture science class. “I liked being creative and always thought I’d like to be a designer or architect,” Kazmier said. He became enamored with landscape design and will be completing his bachelor’s degree in Natural Science and Landscape Architecture with a minor in Horticulture at Purdue University in 2011.
“No matter what – sometime in your life – you’ll have to do some yard work,” Kozmier said. He has helped build a pond, design a patio, and propose ideas for residential yards. “There are endless possibilities of what can be done.“
“All of us are interested in the same thing, but with different goals,” Durband said. It is these goals that have driven former students like Ardente, Kazmier, and members of the horticulture club to explore various facets of horticulture and pursue the education needed to prepare them for fulfilling lives. How will horticulture inspire you?
Everyone Can Grow Something
- Start small. Use a 5-gallon plastic container for your first horticultural endeavor.
- Create a soil mix which will provide nutrients, aeration, and drainage. Use a combination of compost, peat moss, vermiculite, and rich loam.
- Plant with the season in mind. The horticulture club suggests planting chives, oregano, or cilantro seeds right now and starting cool season crops like broccoli, lettuce, and peas in fall.
- Get light. Place your container in a south-facing window.
- Add water. Use enough water to moisten the soil, but make sure the soil dries out between waterings.
- Connect the children in your neighborhood with plants and trees.
- Encourage children to play in the backyard, hike in the woods, or enjoy a trail ride with you. All of the people interviewed for this article grew up playing and helping their families with chores outdoors.
- Introduce children to gardening at an early age. Growing food allows children to witness plant lifecycles firsthand and enjoy the tasty fruits of their labor.
- See how many trees and plants you can identify in your neighborhood and share this information with your children. If you don’t know a maple from an ash, you can get a field guide at the library, or visit a local nature center or conservation group to learn more.
- Encourage students you know at BHS to join the Horticulture Club.
- Volunteer to help students beautify local schools with native, seasonal, or perennial plants.
To learn more about Barrington High School’s horticulture program, contact John Ardente at jardente@barrington220.org