The annual Plant Sale raises over double what was raised last year

Tess Petrillo, Staff Reporter
Originally published June 12, 2019

This year’s plant sale raised about $1,400 for the Horticulture, Botany program and the greenhouse itself. The sale sold everything from vegetable starts to homemade necklaces, all handcrafted or grown by the students in science teacher India Carlson’s Horticulture class.

The success of the plant sale is a necessity to the continuation of the Botany and Horticulture programs. Carlson discussed how Horticulture does receive some funding since it is a Career and Tech Ed class, but that it does not cover all the expenses needed for the class to do special projects or even cover the entire curriculum every year.

“All the money we raise goes into the Greenhouse fund and is used to buy whatever we need for next year,” Carlson said. “If we want to do a special project, if we want to buy more lights or tools, we have to pay for it. It is a necessity to be able to do things that we want to do. Most of the money that we raise goes into buying seeds and plants, or just products we use to do lotion making and tie dye. All those products are: You make it. You consume it. It’s gone. And you have to order more for next year. So we have to have some kind of disposable money.”

In addition to the funding, the plant sale provides an entrepreneurial component to the Horticulture program. “The plant sale is part of the leadership aspect of the Career and Tech Ed Horticulture program,” Carlson said. “I have to offer leadership and entrepreneurial opportunity for students who are taking Horticulture for the Career and Tech Ed credit. Students create advertising for it, students run the sale, students manage the sale, students think about how we should market for the sale.”

While the students in the Horticulture class do most of the planning, labeling and organizing for the plant sale, anyone is welcome to contribute to the sale just for participation or to receive service hours.

Freshman Dorian Hayes describes what kind of work the plant sale entails, both in the preparation and in the execution. “I worked the cash register, I made sure people knew what plants were available, I helped people carry plants out to their cars,” Hayes said. “Altogether I probably spent about eight hours helping at the actual plant sale, but the class had been working on things for the plant sale almost all year.”

“The whole class did the advertising for the plant sale,” Hayes explained. “They started planting things that would be in the sale at the beginning of the year, it was really a collaborative effort from the entire class.”

While the Horticulture students have always worked hard to make sure that the plant sale is successful, the changing demographics of the high school caused the class to have difficulty selling all their items.

Carlson explains how last year the contents of the plant sale mainly consisted of vegetables, flowers and other things that people could plant in their gardens. Since most of the newer teachers are younger and don’t live in houses with gardens, not a lot of items were sold because they didn’t really fit the demographic.

“This year we expanded on our products,” Carlson said. “We have always done vegetable starts, but last year we did so badly with our sales that I decided that this year we would branch out and do more things.”

Including items such as succulent pots, more flowers, ornamental house plants and plant themed jewelry made the sale a lot more versatile and tailored to the current demographic. This resulted in a profit that was more than double what the plant sale made last year.