by Aliza Majid
Reporter: Carley Edwards
With a weekend packed with an array of events across campus in celebration of moms weekend, the Horticulture Club decided to bloom into action with their first ever spring plant sale.
The horticulture club spring plant fair is actually a spin off of our annual Flower Show which was held from 1956 all the way until 2019. We didn’t hold it for a few years but I thought it would be a great idea to revive it which is why we have our big spring plant fair instead to see what works this year,” Joseph Ku, the Horticulture Club President said.
The plant sale consisted of around 1600 plants ranging from donations from various horticulture classes as well as some that the club grew themselves.
According to Ku, they were originally only expecting around 200 plants to be on sale but due to various local extension agents they were in contact with they ended up with a significant amount of plants.
The event consisted of various mini events throughout the day along with the plant sale ranging from plant education workshops to a plant competition where people would vote for the best plant.
The workshops ranged from educating people about carnivorous plants, vegetable gardens, orchids, and native plants.
We really want to spread the knowledge of horticulture as it relates to growing food since that’s a really common area that more people should be getting into which is why we hosted these workshops. Hopefully in the future we will be able to have people plant their own flowers during these workshops,” Ku said.
Since this event was planned for moms weekend there were plenty of opportunities for students to celebrate the weekend while using plants as their love language.
“Coming to the plant shop was number one on our list because it’s very calm, casual and my mom absolutely loves plants, so it was really nice to know that there’s something on campus that was inclusive of that interest of hers,” Sarah Chaine, a senior at the University said.
Sarah and her mom were able to find a particular tomato plant they purchased at the plant sale which ended up signifying important familial memories that their family values.
“We got a tomato plant that I'm excited to use to make Sarah’s favorite salad, Tabbouleh. Food in our culture gathers people since it’s like a social connection to invite people. I can’t wait to share some of my tomato that we bought today in our favorite salad,” Maha Chahine, Sarah’s mother said.
This opportunity allowed the mother and daughter to spend time together doing their favorite thing and reminiscing about old memories.
“This mom’s weekend means a lot to me because it is her senior year so this is the last time I'm going to be with her and I know that Sarah knows that I like flowers and plants a lot so when she sent the poster about this event I wanted to go,” Maha Chahine said.
The horticulture club plans to use all the proceeds from the moms weekend spring plant sale to fund the club events next year and also invest more into this new spring sale tradition.
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