Welcome To The Horticulture Department!
What is horticulture?
Horticulture is defined in Webster's New World Dictionary as the art or science of growing flowers, vegetables, fruits, turf grass and shrubs especially in gardens. The Horticulture Department does all of that and much more as it oversees all the ground maintenance (except trees) of the parks within the Park District. The Park District has about 700 acres of developed parkland plus an additional 200 acres of undeveloped land for future use. This includes Roosevelt and Oak Parks, Corbett Field, Roosevelt Park Zoo, The Optimist Soccer Complex, Souris Valley Regional Park, the old Bison Plant property and 10 neighborhood parks.
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Horticulture Employees
– Steve Wharton Horticulturalist
– Kevin Rubbelke Head Groundskeeper |
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Future Projects
The Horticulture Department is actively involved in several projects. At present we are working on long-range projects like The Souris Valley Regional Park and The Souris River Botanical Conservatory, the Adopt-A-Trail and soon the Adopt-A-Park program. We encourage every individual, business and organization in the city to volunteer to be a part of these exciting projects.
Generous Gifts
The Horticulture Department has been the recipient of several generous gifts over the past ten years. With one of those gifts, by Henry and Marian Kiehn, the Park District was able to build a second greenhouse and work complex, where we grow about 17,000 annuals and perennials each year. The second gift was from Ms. Dell Clarke (Marian Kiehn's sister). That generous gift has been set aside for future development of horticulture projects. I would like to thank the numerous people who have given of their time and donations over the years so that we can maintain the excellent flower program we have.
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