Buffalo Landscape: What is Horticulture

What is Horticulture and why "Buffalo Horticulture."

Taken from its Latin root, horticulture suggests "garden" and "culture" as it is the art (technique) of cultivating plants. It is a wide ranging field spanning specialties of arborculture (trees); agronomy and agriculture; turf management (inc. sports fields and golf courses); the production of floral crops - florists and floriculture; landscape horticulture consisting of garden centers and nurseries that farm ornamental plants; and the production of fruits (pomology), vegetables (Olericulture), and Viticulture (grape production). 

I am on the edge as to whether this blog should at times talk about what and how I make dinner as I don't see it as that far away from horticulture.

So, its a pretty broad field - of which "Buffalo Horticulture" contacts with perhaps eighty percent of the above fields. How I contact each field is a story in itself - a story to be told at other times and along the way. (future blog posts)

In the opposite column, I cut and pasted Wikipedia's introduction to their "Horticulture" page. What it helps to point out is that Horticulture is both a science and an art. And, what this means to me is, you can go to Cornell and get a Master's degree in the science of horticulture (although, it would be in a minor niche or specialty. I don't think they would actually call it a"MS in Horticulture." It would be specialized.)
But, on the other hand, horticulture is an art. Of importance here is that more often than not, I will refer to my spade, rakes, and pruners as if they are the most fundamental things to being a horticulturist. 

So, to be a horticulturist, you need to know the science, but, you also need to be able to rake and use a spade. 

Science and Practice.

But! Why "Buffalo Horticulture?"
Well, when I began operating as my own business, I was leaving a family business that named themselves with the word "landscape" and "landscapers." I could very well have been "Buffalo Landscape" or "Buffalo Landscaping" but, I believe the word landscaper over the past thirty years can come to mean "one who mows lawns." 

So.
"Buffalo Horticulture - We don't cut grass."    

Horticulture is technically the science, technology, and business involved in intensive plant cultivation for human use. It is practiced from the individual level in a garden up to the activities of a multinational corporation. It is very diverse in its activities, incorporating plants for food (fruits, vegetables, mushrooms, culinary herbs) and non-food crops (flowers, trees and shrubs, turf-grass, hops, medicinal herbs). It also includes related services in plant conservation, landscape restoration, landscape and garden design/construction/maintenance,arboriculture, horticultural therapy, and much more. This range of food, medicinal, environmental, and social products and services are all fundamental to developing and maintaining human health and well-being.[1]

Horticulturists apply their knowledge, skills, and technologies used to grow intensively produced plants for human food and non-food uses and for personal or social needs. Their work involves plant propagation and cultivation with the aim of improving plant growth, yields, quality, nutritional value, and resistance to insects, diseases, and environmental stresses. They work as gardeners, growers, therapists, designers, and technical advisors in the food and non-food sectors of horticulture.

Horticultural scientists focus on the research that underpins horticultural knowledge, skills, technologies, education, and commerce. Horticultural science encompasses all of the pure sciences – mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology, and biology – as well as related sciences and technologies that underpin horticulture, such as plant pathology, soil science, entomology, weed science, and many other scientific disciplines. It also includes the social sciences, such as education, commerce, marketing, healthcare and therapies that enhance horticulture's contribution to society.