The following article is addressed to the gardeners that are gray haired and those that are the young generation, entertaining the idea of beginning a gardening experience.
Most people, including politicians, love money and the power in making deals. A multi-millionaire acquaintance of mine once told me, “money is not everything”, and he hesitated and then with a smile said “It’s the only thing”. Thankfully, there are not too many of us that hold that extreme view. The Good Book says, “For the love of money is the root of all evil —— and pierced themselves through with many sorrows”. Now is the time, spring, to begin our sustainable edible gardens. I use the term “sustainable” in the sense of sustaining our love for planting the seed, watching the plants grow and tasting the fruit thereof.
Now, let us go to a higher plane in our love for the nature or environment we live in, specifically landscaping and horticulture. Pleasure in landscaping and horticulture is proportional to our knowledge of them, and retaining this knowledge is a life long struggle. Dr. Hermann Ebbinghaus, a German psychologist, studied the problem of memory lost, and developed the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve. It simply shows the rate of retention of knowledge over a period of time.
The forgetting curve shows us we lose about 95 percent of the learned material in 1 year. To put it another way, we retain about 5 percent at the end of l year. What are we to do?
First of all, you can’t teach old dogs new tricks. Most senior gardeners will not accept new teachings about gardening. Therefore, the answer is to impart knowledge to the beginning gardeners, the Y and millennial generations and jump-start the memory of senior gardeners. Remember, retaining knowledge is a life long struggle.
Richland and Lexington counties are fortunate to have Midlands Technical College to have a program with classes pertaining to landscaping and horticulture. I use these two terms because the green industry spectrum is very broad. The following is a list of classes being taught.
Soil Management
Woody Plants and Shrubs
Pest in the Landscape
Plant Growth and Development
Landscape Management
Landscape Construction
Landscape Design
Arboriculture
Nursery Production
Irrigation
Annuals and Perennials
Lawn Care
Home Vegetable Gardening
So, if you are in the younger generation or the senior generation enlist in the above classes of your choice to learn or regain some knowledge of landscaping and horticulture.
For more information call (803) 732-0432 or visit midlandstech.edu/learn/training
