Bloggin Time!

After an eventful, busy week at Auburn and an enjoyable few days in Destin, FL with my grandparents, I am finally getting around to the blog; my first blog post for the public hort program, actually! My week started off quite hectic, full of class, homework, TA assignments, and just plain ole life. Once Thursday arrived, I headed off to Destin with my grandparents to attend the Mississippi Poultry Association Conference. My grandfather is a poultry vet, partially retired, for MSU. Little did he know, or myself and my grandmother, that his presence was requested for his induction into the Mississippi Poultry Association Hall of Fame! It was quite a surprise and wonderful ceremony, and I was so happy I got to be there for him. My Papaw always told me and the other grandchildren that "knowledge is the one thing that people can't take away from you, and you are the only person who can obtain that knowledge." My Papaw has always pushed me to do well in school and learn meaningful, applicable things, for not only my benefit, but for the benefit of others. He is one of the reasons I decided to further my education by pursuing a master's degree. And now, here I am, studying public horticulture at AU.

For my research, I am focusing on educational and edible garden design and demonstration for youth. The project will involve designing a garden(s), and installing and maintaining the garden(s). In conjunction with the gardens, an educational program will be implemented as well to correlate and reflect specific elements of the garden. An example of that would be designing a vegetable garden and implementing educational curriculum focused on vegetable gardening of the specific plants in that garden. I am very excited and happy with the research avenue I am pursuing. Landscape design, installation, and maintenance, along with educating youth about plants, the benefits of plants, and just facilitating interactions and relationships between people and plants, especially youth, is what I plan to pursue career wise.

So that's my week and a brief over view of my research! As a Mississippi State University alumni, I am still learning the ropes here at Auburn, as well as the campus. So far, my time here at Auburn has been nice. I love the campus; it's beautiful. My department is great and so is our program. I am looking forward to what the future holds for not only myself, but everyone in the program. We are all pursuing related, yet various and distinct research topics in public horticulture that I feel are very relevant, influential, and important for our industry. I hope we all have a great fall semester, with as little stress as possible and lots of fun.