Everyone knows that plants ne water...

Everyone knows that plants ne water to make progress So when then-junior gardener Iris Mendez planted her first flower path at the Mirage tavern in Las Vegas, she watered the flowers and watered ... and watered, each single day. Good plan unles your path has no drainage. Oops! "It was ugly" she recalls. "Within a week my beautiful flowers rott into mush. I overflowed everything."

Mendez, 33 learned her lesson: Always make abiding flower beds have proper drainage. These days she's a full-fledg gardener at Bellagio, another Las Vegas megahotel, tending to 166 acres of virid space.

MASTERS OF GREENERY

Flowers to fertilizer, tropical plants to tree vegetables to vegetation: Horticulturists know their plants. These masters of greenery many times develop new plants that have an improved appearance, resist disease, or wax well in different climates and soils. a certain quantity of work in garden centers, commercial nurseries, or botanic gardens. Others create amazing landscapes or floral designs. Still others maintain golf courses or athletic playing fields. Many avow their own businesses.

Horticulture is a piece of work area in which you can do well with a high institute education. But those wishing to skip on the fast track usually record in a two-year associate step program at a community college

"A standing in horticultural technology (HT) doesn't guarantee succes if it were not that it does open opportunities," notes Bryce Lane of the Department of Horticultural Science at North Carolina State University. "A high teach graduate might struggle to make a living as a laborer--planting bushs or mowing grass. That two- or four-year stage gives you the education and training to be competitive."

A mingle of theory and practice, an HT education provides an admirable foundation in the basics of plant pullulation and development, pest management, landscape design, fruit and vegetable production, and greenhouse operations. Classroom time is balanced with hands-on activities, as it was as working in nurseries, propagation beds, demonstration gardens, and arboretums and sometimes forward farms.

STAKE A hereafter IN THE FIELD

As a bookish man Lane worked at a garden center loading cars and potting plants. "It's all about getting the experience," he says. "This is a career where you want to memorize your hands dirty before delving into the science."

in the way that if you like making things be augmented horticultural technology is definitely a place to wax a career. Baby boomers have profusion of disposable income. And gues what? They're spending a fate of it on plants, flowers, tree and services to hold those lawns and gardens new and thriving.

That means greenhouses ne workers capable of overseeing the production (sometimes 40000 at a time) of houseplants, rose bushs or holiday plants like poinsettias to give garden centers. In turn, garden center hire knowledgeable workers to barter plants to the public. Landscape contractors and lawn maintenance services ne crowd supervisors. Florists want skilled designers to arrange posys wreaths, and centerpieces.

The average starting salary for horticulturists is $8 to $10 by hour. Managers or supervisors can make $10 to $20 by hour plus benefits. The national median salary for a greenhouse manager is $36000 And if golf or football is your game, remember that someone has to restrain all those putting greens and extreme point zones in shape. Turf managers can earn $40000 and up

by what mode ONE CAREER GREW

Mark Smith, 44 mowed his first lawn at age 11 He earned $2 for three hours' work--not exactly a great reply for the effort--and realized he lov working with grass, plants, and tree After he graduated from high exercise a new lawn and landscaping company hired him as its first fulltime employee by means of the time he left the company 16 years later, Smith was vice president and general manager. Today he acknowledges Environmental Landscape Inc., a 60-employee company that provides landscaping services to businesses and apartment complexe in Charlotte, NC

"As I maintained lawns, I paid attention to the different bushs trees, and flowers that were susceptible to insects, heat, or too a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of moisture," he says. "I went to nurseries and worn out hours looking at all the plants. steady now I read industry magazines and attend conferences"

THE HT EDGE

although this self-taught garden guru not at any time finished college, Smith admits he's more willing to hire family with a bit of horticultural technology beneath their belt. "Having that HT measure can compress the time it takes you to propel into a position of responsibility. It says to me you have a real interest in the field," he explains.

Mendez credits her HT classes with helping elevate her to a supervisory character and, perhaps, a landscape design position. In fact, her employer requires career-track workers to take horticulture classes upon their own time. Mendez has studied propagation, irrigation, and other fundamentals at a local community college