by Christie Jones, Curator of Palms & Cycads 

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It's not exactly a song and dance number, our show we have taken on the road.  (Okay there might have been a bit of dance involved

Photo by Christie Jones

Jason Lopez (top) giving guidance during a grafting exercise.

or maybe it resembled charades – more on that later.)  This "road show" was actually a four week long intensive horticulture training workshop.  Our first stop – that is to say the pilot workshop titled "Primer Seminario de Principios de Jardinería" – was held at Summit Nature Park just outside Panama City, Panama.

For years South Floridians have enjoyed easy access to Fairchild's curators and horticulture experts through our continuing education programs, volunteer training courses, horticulture helpline, community lectures, etc.  It has been easy for South Floridians to tap into the knowledge bank at Fairchild.  But let's look past Fairchild.  There are several universities in our area that offer course work and degrees in ornamental horticulture and garden design.  There is a wealth of publications out there readily available to anyone who steps foot in a bookshop or library.  The internet is teeming with information about general horticulture and horticulture specific to our area.   These are all wonderful information sources – resources that we take for granted. 

Photo by Jason Lopez

Students practicing their newly learned propagation techniques.

Now do me a favor and imagine for just a moment that none of these resources exist or are at best spotty and unreliable.  Imagine there is no botanic garden with experts to call, no university curriculum, and the only real quantity of books or internet sites about horticulture written in your language are for a totally different part of the world. Frustrating as it may seem, this scenario is a fact of life in Panama, Central America, and I dare say many countries around the world. 

What Fairchild has done to address the problem is create an intensive horticulture workshop to bring much needed information to the people who need it.  (We can't take credit for the initial idea.  It was the director at Summit, Adrian Benedetti, who first contacted us asking for help.)  The course weaves together a mix of classroom lecture and outdoor practice.  We cover a wide variety of topics: botany for gardeners, garden design, propagation, nursery management, grafting, pruning, soils and fertilization, planting, pesticides, mulching, composting, and more.

With funding from USAID we gave the pilot workshop, split into two two-week sessions in October and January.  Our 25 students were a mixed lot at varying levels of education, including employees of Summit, members of local nursery associations and affiliates of local non-profit organizations.  They were all eager to learn and soaked in every word we had to say.  A few of our more educated students even gave us a hand when we didn't quite have the words in Spanish to explain ourselves satisfactorily (thus leading to an amusing display of charades – which our pupils quickly learned to decipher). 

For our students, the highlight of the workshop was the fieldtrips.  In October, we visited two local nurseries – el Tigre Verde and PRORENA – to find out how each is successfully managed.  We encouraged students to think critically about what they saw and heard and to decide for themselves which practices they can implement at their own nurseries.  In January, as part of the landscape design module, we visited the home of landscape designer Denise Martinelli.  There students practiced identifying the elements of design – line, color, form, texture, etc. – which they had previously learned in class.

 
Another small victory for this workshop was educating participants on how to safely use pesticides.  Ignorance and abuse of

Photo by Jason Lopez

Christie Jones (crouching far left) showing the class soil horizons evident in a cut of soil.

pesticides is a worldwide epidemic.  In Panama, for example, the deadly herbicide paraquat (accidentally ingesting 10 ml will kill you) is favored over safer chemicals simply because it is cheaper and has a longer history of use.  Once our students realized the danger of using this chemical without protection (as some of them do), they were eager to learn all they could about pesticides to protect themselves and others.

 
Try as we might, it just isn't possible for our small staff to reach all in need of horticultural education.  The beauty of this workshop is that students can take the information they learn and pass it on to their colleagues, family, friends…anyone interested in learning.  This way, the number of people we reach (indirectly) can grow exponentially. 

 
We have seen great outcomes benefiting everyone involved in this pilot workshop.  The grounds crew at Summit is better prepared to perform their daily tasks.  Members of the local nursery association will hopefully see increased income as a result of healthier plants.  We have built a lasting relationship between Summit and Fairchild.  And we have successfully test-run a program with potential for grand success.

 

 

"Graduation Day". The class proudly displaying their certificates of completion alongside the instructors and representatives of USAID and Summit Nature Park.

Photo by Jason Lopez

Looking for stomata on the underside of a leaf.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Special thanks to USAID for providing financial support for this workshop and to my co-instructors Jason Lopez, April Dominguez, and Mike Cavanagh.  Also thanks to Mrs. Denise Martinelli, el Tigre Verde, and PRORENA for graciously hosting us on our workshop field trips.