Success of horticulture students’ project grows ... For the love of peat

By JoAnn Jones

Special The Vindicator

CANFIELD

Christmas wreaths decorated in red, silver or purple decorate the walls in the horticulture classroom at the Mahoning County Career and Technical Center. Centerpieces sit on the tables, waiting to be taken into the horticulture store. Rows of poinsettias adorn tables in the greenhouse as students take home order forms for the Christmas season.

Creativity abounds in the horticulture classroom at MCCTC. From corsages, wedding flowers and Christmas poinsettias for the juniors to landscaping, pesticides and Bobcat machinery for the seniors, the students in Mary June Emerson’s class are learning firsthand how to make their own creations. And then they learn the business aspect of horticulture, too.

“I made a wreath with a red ribbon,” Michele Grandon of Sebring said. “I took the silk flowers and used a glue gun to put silver bulbs on. When I was done putting all the decorations on, I put a wire on it for hanging.”

“Once we get done,” Grandon added, “we have to price our items according to a pricing sheet of the individual pieces.”

“My favorite thing is making corsages, but I’d like to use what I learn to help my dad in the summer,” she said. “I’d like to try to use this as a profession, too.”

Grandon is one of several students who have created wreaths and centerpieces for the full-service flower shop MCCTC has opened for the Christmas season. The store, which operates from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily, opened Nov. 29 and will close at the end of the school day Dec. 21. It will reopen later in the school year when spring flowers are ready.

“We’ll have fresh wreaths and centerpieces at a variety of prices,” Emerson said. “We do really nice wreaths with a mix of greens. We’ve had a lot of compliments on them.”

“We bring the kids in and get them excited about creating,” she added. “Some have never created before.”

Emerson herself is a graduate of the MCCTC program in the class of 1975, its third year.

“I told the teacher I had when I graduated from this horticulture class in 1975, jokingly of course, that someday I would have his job teaching this same program,” she said. “Who knew it would actually happen?”

It didn’t right away. She left high school, managed a flower shop, and then worked for 11 years answering home horticulture calls for The Ohio State University Agricultural Extension Center.

“I had to research everything,” Emerson said, “lawn, insects, tree projects. That’s what really sparked my diversity in horticulture.”

She later received her associate degree in horticulture from Kent State-Salem and was hired as an environmental educator for the Mahoning County Soil and Water Conservation District.

“I did lesson plans and taught all over the county,” she said. “I fully expected to retire from that job.”

Yet, Emerson said she left that job and was out of work for about a year when she ran into a former MCCTC administrator while getting a tire changed.

“It was meant to be,” she said. “He told me of the possibility of an opening and said I needed to pursue it. I did, and after several interviews, I was hired as a full-time substitute. Then right before school started in 2005, I got the job.”

“I love it,” she said. “I learn so much from my students, it surprises me and surprises them.”

“I really just wanted different, hands-on experience,” said Ryan Cantana, who is a senior but is at the career center for his first year after completing his junior year at Boardman High School. “I’m learning everything from making floral designs to how poinsettias grow, and everything else I didn’t know about plants.”

Junior Rachel Mayhew of Boardman said the class is also a lot of fun.

“I took it because I just like being outside,” she said. “I like plants and I thought it would be fun. I love being creative and making my own things.”

Mayhew said she makes mainly fresh flower arrangements.

“I’ve sold two,” she said, “and we still have some in the store. I want to open a floral shop some day.”

Brooke Francis, a junior from Jackson-Milton, said she loves flowers and working outdoors, too.

“We just worked on a group project of purple poinsettias and glitter,” she said. “It’s in the shop to be sold. I was the leader on that project.”

Anthony Christani, another Sebring student, said he enjoys making Thanksgiving and Christmas arrangements the most.

“I like growing the poinsettias from little plants in the dirt,” he said. He also uses his skills to help his parents plant flowers and mulch gardens and to help his grandfather on his farm.

“I’ve always loved flowers,” Michelle Edwards of Austintown said. “My favorite is creating silk flower arrangements.”

Emerson, along with classroom aide Jared Swift, a certified teacher, not only teaches the juniors about flower arrangements but also instructs the seniors in full-blown landscaping projects.

“They do a site analysis for a home,” she said, “and do both the hardscape and the softscape. It gives the seniors an opportunity to use their creativity in a different way.”

“The seniors also learn to run large equipment,” Emerson said, “such as a Bobcat skid steer loader, an X Mark zero turn mower, a roto-tiller, an edger and weed whips.”

“They have to have a true love of plants and not be afraid to get their hands dirty,” she added.

“We work hard. We have to. If they’re motivated, I’ll teach anything.”

Both classes — 17 juniors and eight seniors — enter competitions sponsored by the FFA, which include not only horticulture skills but also skills in public speaking and language arts.

“We incorporate reading and writing,” Emerson said. “They have to understand the basic format of putting projects together.”

They also incorporate math skills into the projects when they figure the pricing and a percentage of mark-up on each item they sell, though the students don’t charge for labor.

Emerson is proud that many of the students go on to college, such as the horticulture program at Kent State-Salem and the Agricultural Technical Institute (ATI) in Wooster, which is a branch of Ohio State University.

Students recently attended a college fair to learn more about their opportunities.

“People have a desire to share knowledge,” she said.

“You’re born with it. It drains you, but I want that challenge.”