Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 23, 1993 TAG: 9312230411
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: W-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHARLES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEW CASTLE LENGTH: Medium
And this year they got a third - and much happier - experience.
The first two were experiences in failure; namely, whiteflies and freeze.
But this year is an experience in success - born from the two failures.
And that adds up to poinsettias - all healthy and colorful.
The class started with 200 of them but that number has been reduced somewhat because the plants have been on sale - $4.50 each - during the holiday season.
Mark St. Leger, teacher of the horticulture class, said this has been a painful and unexpected learning experience for the class, which has 12 students this year.
A nice crop of poinsettias was coming along last year, he said, but late in the growing season the school's greenhouse was mysteriously infested with whiteflies.
"We did not sell any poinsettias last year because I did not want to introduce whiteflies into anybody's home" he said.
This was particularly disappointing because there was no sale the previous year because of a freeze. During a cold spell the electricity went off, St. Leger said, shutting down the heat in the school's greenhouse one day after everyone had left.
"It wiped out the whole crop in one night," St. Leger said.
Since then the greenhouse has acquired a backup heating system and the students have a pesticide control to prevent whiteflies.
And for that, St. Leger said the class is indebted to the Necessary Trading Post and Bill Wolf, owner of that company which deals in products for organic agriculture.
"He's been very helpful to us," St. Leger said. "He's a good support."
And because of that combined effort the class has poinsettias for sale for the first time.
But poinsettias are not the only things the class grows.
"The greenhouse is used all during the school year," St. Leger said. "The only time it's empty is in the summer."
During this holiday season, the class has a healthy tomato crop coming along with the poinsettias. Ripe fruit should be ready in January.
Also big items for the greenhouse are numerous flower and vegetable plants in the spring.
"We have too many to mention," St. Leger said.
Year-round the class keeps a supply of house plants and this spring St. Leger will introduce the students to the art of cultivating bonsai, or miniature plants.
Everything the greenhouse produces is for sale, St. Leger said, but gaining revenue is only a small part of the motivation.
Instruction is the main objective, he said, all the way from seed or cuttings to handing change to a customer.
The students handle it all, and under the watchful eye of St. Leger they get experience not only in cultivation but also marketing.
It gives them experience in meeting customers, talking to the customers about the plants and learning the customers' needs.
"They get lots of hands on experience," he said. "We make them do the work."
Even freezes and whiteflies.
But the students seem to like it that way.
Two of them, Michelle Smith and Miranda Huffman, said the greenhouse work is fun.
Most of the students are not sure they plan to go into horticulture as a vocation but one does plan to go into a related field.
Ernie Fowler said he is heading toward farming and thinks the horticulture he's learning will help in that.
The 37-year-old St. Leger, a native of Pennsylvania who settled in this area because he likes the mountains, also teaches classes in carpentry and cabinetmaking at New Castle High.
He is married and has three children and his wife, Barbara, is a substitute teacher and homebound teacher in Giles County.
by CNB