My son is growing from a toddler to preschooler, and I am suddenly confronted with the task of education. As I was thinking about school my mind turned to my own schooling.

I loved biology in high school, and felt a strong push to go into a science related field. I choose horticulture. Plenty of my peers had no love of science, but loved the art of designing and showing gardens. My peers complained over the science classes we had to take–chemistry, biology, genetics. They would rather take flower arranging, advanced landscape design. A professor told me that horticulture was a science degree. He did not look highly on the artsy design classes.

Both my professor and my peers lost the beauty of horticulture. Horticulture is a wonderful combination of both art and science. Nowhere is this more evident for me than in pruning trees. My favorite class in college was a graduate level class on environmental plant physiology. It involved a lot of hard-science and math calculations to determine exactly how plants grew. It also gave me the best education on pruning. As I understood how plants grew, I knew what I was trying to achieve in pruning.

When I’m in front of the tree, I’m not running calculations through my head. I use the science I know and turn it into an art. I envision how that tree can best get light and grow healthy and strong. With the skillful stroke of my pruners, I shape it into my vision. Pruning is my favorite art from. But if I had no understanding of the science behind it, it would not be beloved art, but a misunderstood chore.

I went  into horticulture as a scientist. But horticulture taught me to be an artist too.