MSU Horticulture Club hosts plant sale this week
Contact: Grace Jones
STARKVILLE, Miss.鈥敾ㄐ阒辈 State鈥檚 Horticulture Club is holding its annual spring plant sale to help gardeners expand their personal plant collections and raise funds for the organization to carry out service priorities and establish a new scholarship.
The plant sale takes place at the greenhouses by Dorman Hall on Friday [April 8], 8 a.m.-5:30 p.m., and Saturday [April 9], 8 a.m.-1 p.m. The building is at the intersection of Stone Blvd. and Creelman St.
Featuring annuals, perennials, house plants, vegetables, herbs, succulents and other selections available for purchase, some of the more popular varieties offered include petunias, geraniums, marigolds, vinca, sage, begonias, fiddle-leaf figs, monarda and many other options.
Sam Cothron, a senior agronomy major from Madison, is the Horticulture Club鈥檚 greenhouse manager and helps propagate and grow plants for the sale.
鈥淲e try to grow pretty much everything. We have house plants for students who might be living in dorms or for people who live in apartments and don鈥檛 have space for a garden,鈥 Cothron said. 鈥淲e also have a lot of vegetables, herbs, annual bedding plants and some perennials too.鈥
The club meets bi-weekly throughout the academic year and begins growing sale plants in January each year.
Professor Richard Harkess in MSU鈥檚 Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, who serves as the club鈥檚 faculty advisor, said along with service projects and scholarship opportunities, the sale funds support enhancement of student experiences, training and undergraduate activities.
鈥淭he money we earn goes to future plant sales, club events and service projects. One of the most significant things we are currently fundraising for is an endowed club scholarship,鈥 Harkess said, with about $5,000 already collected. Other fundraising activities are planned, and the club hopes the fund will cover club trips to conferences or botanical gardens and enhance engagement with horticultural science.
鈥淭his club is classified as a service organization, so we try to stay on top of our service projects. We prepare pantry boxes that we鈥檝e donated to Starkville Strong and Bully鈥檚 Pantry, and we give away free plants to the community for special events like Green Week or Earth Day to promote the club and engage with our community,鈥 Harkess said.
For more information, visit on Facebook. MSU鈥檚 Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, offers a degree in horticulture with concentrations in floricultural and ornamental horticulture, floral management, and fruit and vegetable production. For more information, visit .
MSU is 花秀直播鈥檚 leading university, available online at .