Horticulture / Landscape Technology teachers and students from Minuteman win award for display at Boston Flower & Garden Show

PHOTO CAPTION: This display created by teachers and students in the Horticulture / Landscape Technology program at Minuteman High School for the 2017 Boston Flower & Garden Show won the New England Nursery Association Award. (Photo courtesy Sarah Ard)

By Judy Bass

BOSTON - Teachers and students in the Horticulture / Landscape Technology program at Minuteman High School in Lexington have won an award for an exhibit they created for the 2017 Boston Flower & Garden Show. The event took place from March 22-26 at the Seaport World Trade Center.

Instructors Sarah Ard and Peter Kelleher and their students received the New England Nursery Association Award for an intricate exhibit featuring a 320-square-foot garden which they crafted for the Show, whose theme this year was “Superheroes of the Garden.”

“It’s really exciting,” said Ms. Ard of the honor. “Our exhibit highlighted pollinators as the real superheroes. The exhibit has a dry fit cobblestone moongate, inspired by a moongate at Blithewold Mansion, Gardens, and Arboretum in Bristol, Rhode Island; bee boxes and various pollinator houses (bat boxes, mason bee hotels and beetle boxes); and native plants such as Concord grape and Cary Award-winning plants.”

A moongate is “a circular opening in a garden wall” which people can pass through.

The award is "presented to the exhibit that best utilizes a range of New England native plants, and their cultivars, in a visually appealing and environmentally sensible setting." Cultivars are “plants selected for desirable characteristics that are maintained during propagation.”

All students in the Horticulture / Landscape Technology program had a hand in the design and logistics of the exhibit as well as in building various parts of the display. For the set-up, including constructing the moongate, two juniors (Nick DuLong of Medford and Jeffrey Connell of Billerica) and two seniors (Max Busa of Lexington and Duncan MacLean of Medford) devoted a weekend to working on the display.

Mr. Kelleher worked on the moongate with the upperclassmen to get the form correct and to practice fitting it all in preparation for the Show because there was limited time to get it ready. Ms. Ard worked on plant selection and placement and the layout of the display.

The students benefited tremendously from their experience, said Ms. Ard. They practiced time management due to impending deadlines and did research on pollinators, habitat and native plants. They also had to think about the practicality of each aspect of the display, she mentioned, like how the plants were going to look and what people could see from all sides of the display.

The effort was well worth it. “This was a great experience to add to their resume,” Ms. Ard explained. “More than 75,000 people attend the Show, which has been around for over 100 years. It is a great confidence booster because we were the only high school group involved. The students get recognized by companies who see that we have a high school horticulture program and that our level of work is in line with the other exhibits.”

Minuteman Superintendent Dr. Edward Bouquillon expressed his pleasure at how the school’s Horticulture / Landscape Technology program has flourished. “Minuteman's agricultural program continues to impress me and is a great source of pride for our school. The Future Farmers of America members, our instructors and our very active Advisory Board have helped grow this program. As we move forward with the construction of the new Minuteman school building, the Landscaping and Horticulture program will be even more relevant and will be able to serve the industry and our students who are moving forward in their college and career plans.”

Student Duncan MacLean conveyed the rewarding sense of accomplishment that he and his classmates derived from what they did: “To be a part of the prestigious Boston Flower show is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a high school student. To be able to see the enjoyment that people experienced from viewing our exhibit was very gratifying."

Minuteman was established in the 1970s as one of more than two dozen regional-vocational technical high schools in Massachusetts. Over the years, the school has distinguished itself by building a reputation for excellence. Minuteman students consistently excel on the larger stage and have won numerous awards at state and national competitions. Minuteman challenges all students to revolutionize their high school expectations by aspiring to their full potential, accelerating their learning, and achieving success in the 21st-century global community.

Minuteman recently secured state and local funding to build a new $144.9 million school, including 16 career and technical programs in two Career Academies. Groundbreaking is expected to occur this spring, with the new school being open to students in the fall of 2019.