Horticulture

What Does Horticulture Mean?

Horticulture is the practice of producing, cultivating, and managing a garden. While horticulture may seem similar to botany, it differs in that botany is strictly a science, while horticulture often incorporates aesthetic and design elements to create more beautiful, as well as functional, gardens.

Maximum Yield Explains Horticulture

The first recorded instances of horticulture date back to ancient Persia, when this practice first appeared as humans began to transition from being primarily nomadic hunter-gatherers into the age of agriculture.

However, it’s important to note that horticulture is not the same as agriculture. Whereas agriculture involves large single-crop fields, horticulture is performed on a smaller scale with mixed crops of plants in small gardens, patches, pots, or planters.

Today, horticulture applies to both indoor and outdoor gardens. In this practice, horticulturists focus on everything that goes into cultivating a garden. Through horticulture, a horticulturist may specialize in raising fruits, vegetables, flowering plants, ornamental plants, herbs, or some combination of plants in gardens at home or for commercial purposes.

In addition to these, horticulture also includes the practice of preserving and conserving plants, as well as restoring landscapes. Many horticulturists create and grow their gardens for their own personal use and enjoyment. They might do this with indoor flowering plants that brighten up their homes, or they might cultivate kitchen gardens or professional gardens from which they can sell their produce and/or plants.

If you have ever grown a group of mixed plants together in an indoor or outdoor garden, then you’ve practiced the art and science of horticulture.