Penn State Horticulture Show 2008

This Year's Show Theme - Sustainable Landscapes

It was with great pleasure that I was able to participate in this year's 'hort show.' Actually, I ended up playing a larger role than I had originally anticipated; however, I am quite pleased that I did.

The Pennsylvania State University Horticulture Show is designed, built, and cleaned up entirely by students in the Horticulture Club (which is primarily comprised of Landscape Contracting students). This year's showed focused on sustainable landscapes and their components. Items like natural swimming pools, which use plant life and bacteria to naturally filter water rather than chemicals; or rain gardens, which collect run-off water from roofs and transfer them into rain barrels or ponds.

This year's show also utilized products used for 'green roofs', and 'living wall' retaining walls. All of the plant material in the show was donated by local and distant nurseries and was sold to the patrons attending the show. Proceeds of these sales go the Hort Club capital fund, which is used for Hort Show construction costs as well as off-setting educational trips for students in the club.

The design plan for this show was designed by Senior Landscape Contracting Student Gabriel Svonavec. Gabe also served as a manager for the show insuring his vision was accomplished. Construction of the show takes place in exactly one week, and not a day longer. As you can imagine, this becomes quite the arduous task when you are only allotted a finite amount of man-power. Nevertheless, the show must go on, right? Countless man hours were spent on this year's show to ensure that prop structures were built and finalized, materials were obtained, and detail work was finished - on schedule.