The Plant Shop is running a "Study Buddy" promo right now. Plants increase productivity, reduce stress, and increase memory retention. Sounds like a great item to have on your desk as you work on school tasks! Visit the Plant Shop in the greenhouse (BEN 275) Monday-Friday 8am-5pm or stop by one of the booths in the MC on Fridays. Check out their Facebook page here! Tara Vent is a Horticulture student here at BYU-Idaho, but she’s also dually enrolled in a horticulture therapy certificate program offered at Colorado State through the AHTA. At the end of this year she’ll have completed the AHTA program and when she graduates from BYU-Idaho she’ll have her B.S. in Horticulture in addition to a certificate in horticultural therapy. Now that's cool!
How does she take classes in Rexburg and at CSU? The program requires you to take quarterly trips to Colorado, or whatever satellite location of your choosing. You have assignments to complete before your trip and then after. Seems doable, right? Tara got started in this therapy program due to one of her professors mentioning it in class. She went home and looked more into it and decided to enroll. Tara has a love of plants in addition to a desire to make people feel better, so it’s been a perfect fit for her. She loves working with patients and getting them to do something that they normally wouldn’t have the motivation to do in a standard physical/occupational therapy session. “There’s a purpose behind each task,” she says, “and you, and more importantly, the patient can see a visual improvement instead of simply completing an exercise.” Eventually she’ll pursue becoming a professionally registered horticulture therapist. The apples are few weeks ahead of schedule in our orchard this year. The only apples left are the ones that are hard to reach at the top of the trees. Use the ladders located at the apple shed to climb up and pick what's left. For $0.50/lb you won't find a better deal. We have a free tasting policy. We encourage you to walk around and taste the varieties you're interested in. Then when you find THE ONE that you love you can load up. There are ladders and buckets and a scale when you're finished picking at the shed on the northeast corner of the orchard. Have fun! Our Come Alive Outside 2015 was a success! Thank you to all who helped-- your time and efforts are much appreciated. Every four years the Applied Plant Science Department has a change in leadership. On August 1, 2015 a new department chair was officially announced. We are excited to have Nels Hansen now serving as our leader. Brother Hansen is an Idaho native, growing up in the farmlands of Weiser and then coming to Ricks College. He completed the rest of his collegiate work at BYU and Texas A&M. His first teaching job was at OSU at the AgTech Institute where he taught crop and soils science for eight years. Brother Hansen then made it back to Rexburg and began teaching at BYU-Idaho in fall 2013. He and his wife of 15 years, Christina, have seven children ages 14, 12, 12, 10, 10, 8, and 3. Yes, two sets of twins! The Hansen family enjoys hiking and spending time outside. During the next four years, Bro. Hansen wants to work toward creating more opportunities for students to apply what is learned during class. He would like to see more students engaged on the campus farm, greenhouse, and gardens, and each plant science program to collaborate with other departments on campus in order give students a more meaningful learning experience. This would also inform more students outside of our department why the field of plant science is crucial to making the world a better place as it addresses some challenging global issues such as food production and nutrition. By giving our current students more occasions to learn outside of the classroom, Bro. Hansen hopes that the Applied Plant Science Department will continue to grow and gain the interest of more students within the university. Hello everyone! We hope your fall semester is off to a great start. One way to make it even better is to come to our Department Social. It will be held in the greenhouse on September 29th at 6:00pm. Dinner will be served [free]. Help us make sure there's enough food for everyone by filling out the reservation form. Hope to see you there! Come Alive Outside is a celebration of all the fun to be had in the beauty of the outdoors. There are multiple benefits to spending more time outside, and this event will educate you about why we all need more outdoor play no matter our age. You can find us in the gardens on September 29th, between the Ricks and the Benson buildings having a good time with games and prizes, Zumba, and food. For $2 there will be a baked potato bar and fresh pressed juice from apples in our orchard. This event will begin at 12 noon and end at 5 p.m. with a shut down during the Devotional hour. The keynote speaker will present at 12:45 p.m. Come for the food. Come for the fun. Come for the friends. If you want to see what we did last year, click here.
A soothing place to take a walk.
When many students, faculty, and staff need a break to think, exercise, or just a place to take in nature, they head for the Thomas E. Ricks Horticulture Demonstration Garden. This 10 acre garden on the south side of BYU-Idaho campus began in 1977. Over the years it has evolved into one of the finest show gardens in the western U. S. The dream of the gardens. The Ricks College Horticulture Demonstration Garden was a dream of Doctor D Kim Black, who chaired the Horticulture Department in its early years. Division Chairmen and College Administrators gave their support, and in the late 1970's 10 acres of land east of the Ezra Taft Benson Building, then the Life Science/Agriculture Building, were designated as the Horticulture Display and Demonstration Gardens. Jim Long, a Landscape Architect, and Allen Wilson, a well known expert on intermountain gardening, with the able assistance of garden manager Don Miller carried on the project by incorporating the development of the gardens into their respective classes and student labor groups. Byron John, an award winning Landscape Design Build expert replaced Jim Long who retired in the late 1980's, and continued the development and refinement of the gardens. In the early 2000's the gardens underwent a major redevelopment, when Brad Weaver, LA, Rulon Nielson, BYU Idaho Campus Architect, and the Horticulture Department Faculty consulted on a plan to incorporate paved walkways, and lighting into the gardens to accomodate the growth of the campus, and the recent addition of the new Ricks, Hinckley, and Benson building construction. Giving practical experience to students in horticulture classes and offering educational demonstrations for the community, and the Horticulture industry, have been the motivation for over thirty years of garden development. A living laboratory for class work. Construction began on the gardens in 1977. The original ten-acre site was primarily pasture land with some cultivated cropland, and even an old landfill and a private airplane landing strip. Since then, the Horticulture Demonstration Gardens have grown to become the largest research and display garden in Eastern Idaho, and now a central park of the BYU Idaho campus. The gardens are constantly changing. Each year a new feature is added. Throughout the years, students in the Design Build emphasis in Horticulture have designed, and constructed most of the major features. Students from advanced design courses are responsible for developing the conceptual design image of the garden feature which is then put together by the landscape construction class. Each year a project either creates a new feature or reconstructs an aging one. During the summer, those plans on paper are transferred into lumber, stone, and plants as the landscape construction class goes to work. Thus, the Horticulture Demonstration Gardens grow, and will continue to expand each year. The purposes of the Gardens are many. Although used by the entire school and surrounding communities, the garden was originally established to facilitate outdoor teaching for the Horticulture Department at Ricks College. More recently, it has been completely revised and is now the Thomas E Ricks Horticulture Demonstration Gardens, a main focal point of the BYU Idaho Campus. The garden today is a result of collaboration of students, faculty, and professionals. Over the years many other campus departments, wards, clubs and community members have used the gardens for various activities. Often students perform service in planting and maintaining the beautiful beds of flowers, shrubs, and trees. The gardens are open to the public, and have become a popular site for visits to the area from many parts of the world. Features Some features include various water falls and ponds, a formal European Garden, a Picnic Pavilion, the Gazebo Reception area, test gardens where the All American Selections plants are evaluated and displayed, small fruits and orchards, Potager gardens, raised bed fruit vegetable and flower gardens, annual and perennial flower beds, a conifer collection, and more. Many formal and informal receptions are held in the garden each summer. The Gazebo and Picnic Pavilion may be reserved for wedding receptions, company parties, reunions and other group events. Please contact the BYU Idaho Special Events at 208 496-3121 for availability and cost information.The Thomas E. Ricks Gardens provide beautiful venues for memorable events. If you attended the annual Patriots & Pioneers show at I-Center this weekend (July 11th), then maybe you noticed the floral arrangements on stage. A few of the flower center girls along with Sister Cox and Brother Romney put the floral pieces together right there on the stage Friday afternoon before the show was filmed. This year’s Master Gardner Conference took place June 25th and 26th. It seems everyone enjoys coming to campus and enjoying our beautiful gardens as their classroom. All who attended had a great day of learning and revitalization. What better way to learn how to improve your own gardens while basking in the glory of well-established garden? We’re already looking forward to next year’s event. |
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