Welcome to The School of Professional Horticulture

In our two-year program students tackle core courses in botany, math, soil sciences, landscape design and plant propagation – to name a few. Working alongside our expert Horticulture staff, students participate in installing shows at the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, growing display crops in the new Nolen Greenhouses, and planting displays in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden. They also take field trips to public gardens, celebrities estates, nurseries, organic farms, city gardens operated by the New York Restoration Project, as well as green roofs in Chinatown and ecological sites like the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Students also complete a second-year internship option in order to successfully complete the program.

Begun in 1919 as a horticulture vocational training program for returning war veterans at The New York Botanical Garden, the School was expanded into a professional gardener-training program in 1932 by Thomas H. Everett, an alumnus of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The School combines academic studies with hands-on practical training in a two-year, full-time program. Through classes, work rotation, group projects, plant walks,fieldtrips, and lectures School of Professional Horticulture students are able to master the science of horticulture in the classroom and practice what they learn on the Garden grounds.

Director's Note

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Blog Posts:

Spotlight on: NYBG Horticulture Student Songsuk Kim
by Dachell McSween

LI Horticultural Society awards scholarship
by Jessica Damiano
Garden Detective, Newsday Blog