A toilet painted in pastels and flooded with colorful flowers was part of the MSU Horticulture Club’s “A Gallery of Gardens: A Fusion of Art and Horticulture” show last weekend.
A living room transformed into a garden, complete with a television plant potter, was a hit with the crowd.
Max Ferguson, a 5-year-old Williamston resident, looked at the mosaic of plant life in wonder.
“I’d never do that to my TV,” Ferguson said. “I only have one.”
The 30-member club did the unusual, fusing student art into natures displays.
“Gardening is an art form, when you look at your garden you look at color form and shape,” said horticulture senior Sarah McQueen.
Thousands of student-grown flowers, shrubbery and grasses made up colorful displays. The club put months of planning into the weekend event.
“I wouldn’t miss this weekend for anything, the time and effort really pays off,” McQueen said.
The proceeds from plant sales were donated to the club’s fund for competitions. MSU placed first at the Mid-America Collegiate Horticulture Society competition at Purdue University in March. The competition included plant identification, written exams and horticulture knowledge.
During the show, the Department of Horticulture hosted lectures and workshops, and keeping with the gallery of gardens theme, classes were taught on photography, crafts and papermaking.
“This is going back into the classroom,” said Linda DeRuiter, a teacher at Madison Heights Lutheran School.
DeRuiter said she plans to help her students make homemade cards for Mother’s Day.
“They’ll love it,” she said. “I love the hands on approach, in preschools everything’s hands on, they learn more that way.”
DeRuiter said she came out to support her daughter Heather, a horticulture sophomore, DeRuiter said the family shares a love for gardening.
“We’ve been gardening since she was three, she had a boxed-in flower garden she would water and plant,” DeRuiter said.
Like the DeRuiter family, the Horticulture Club hopes to turn kids on to plant science. Liz Monroe, a horticulture senior, said she wants to develop horticulture programs for children.
“It’s loads of fun when you see them get excited and make the connection when identifying a plant or potting flowers,” she said.
Kids took pictures with life-size bears made out of wire frames and stuffed with compost in the greenhouses and planted flowers at a kids station. In the Michigan 4-H Children’s Garden, families enjoyed the shrubbery maze.
Spence Shellberg, a 6-year-old from DeWitt, said he helps his mom in her garden.
“I like the flowers,” he said, smiling.
Spence’s mom Jane Miller, a political science adviser, said the event was perfect for all ages.
“He (Spence) enjoyed the butterflies and planting flowers and I got ideas for my own garden,” she said.
