Horticulture Students Work Together to Create New Teaching Gardens and Spaces

U of A horticulture students are seeing new and improved teaching gardens and outdoor spaces this year based on the department's ongoing emphasis and additional recent initiatives to provide more hands-on learning opportunities.

Horticulture students, faculty, staff and volunteers completed several projects over the last year to renovate campus teaching gardens, create two new gardens, reclaim and clear the Horticulture Club's workspace and establish a mini "putting green" — work made possible by donations from the One Day, One U of A fundraising campaign.

The new spaces are located near the Rosen Pest Control Center and greenhouses and will continue to be developed throughout the academic year. The spaces will be used to host hands-on learning events and offer collaborative workspaces for future student projects. The new gardens and spaces are designed to support current and new departmental courses, allowing students to experience horticulture beyond the classroom.

Prior to the work performed on the new teaching spaces, horticulture faculty, staff, students, friends, alumni and colleagues, along with Native Restoration & Management, participated in volunteer days throughout the 2025-26 academic year to help maintain the prior teaching spaces near Maple Street. Due to construction and demolition projects around Maple Street, the department, part of the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences, had to divert efforts outside the construction zone.

In response, instructor Sarah Paschal and undergraduate students from horticulture and other departments concentrated efforts on preparing and creating new gardens and spaces surrounding the Rosen Center. After working to clear spaces of invasive plants and old plant debris, Paschal and her students created the Native Plant Teaching Garden and worked with University Professor Curt Rom to create the Herbs, Spices and Medicinal Plants Garden. Horticulture Department head Mary Savin praised the work Paschal and her students contributed to the teaching gardens.

"Ms. Paschal has been an inspiration in the gardens, and she and her students have worked tirelessly this past summer to make substantive strides in establishing new garden space and preparing areas for future improvements," she said. "I am excited for the Department of Horticulture to continue to emphasize high impact, experiential learning opportunities, which we consider a strength of the department."  

The Native Plant Teaching Garden displays plant species that grow throughout Arkansas. It allows students to see the characteristics and growth habits of plants within the natural landscape while also observing native plants in designed and urban landscaping. This garden is also used to supplement instruction in the new Arkansas Native Plants for the Built Environment course, allowing students to gain firsthand experience with designing, constructing and maintaining environments using native plants.

"To me, the teaching garden represents more than just a living laboratory where students come to learn," Paschal said. "It is also a space that creates opportunities for community interaction that might not otherwise happen, as well as a learning opportunity for anyone passing by. The native plant space has been especially rewarding to see, watching native pollinators use the host plants we have provided to complete their life cycles, such as monarch butterflies. Seeing the gardens support both student learning and the broader community has made this a very rewarding process."

The second garden follows the same hands-on approach, providing instructional materials for the Herbs, Spices and Medicinal Plants course. The garden not only features common medicinal plants and culinary and fragrant herbs and spices, but also includes poisonous plants to exemplify the importance of plant identification. Plants featured include species sold or produced by Arkansan nurseries, garden centers or farms, or plants that are often used in local garden landscapes.

These new gardens help students further understand the relationship between the respective plant species and the environment through high-impact teaching practices.

Future garden maintenance will provide learning opportunities, as students enrolled in the Principles of Horticulture course will follow up on the projects by installing drip irrigation in the gardens. The collaborative and practical skills developed through the gardens will allow students to gain confidence in applied horticultural practices in future internships and careers.

Along with the creation of the teaching gardens, the Horticulture Department also involved its turf science program to develop a space that will soon be used as a golf miniature putting green. In mid-2025, turfgrass science students and faculty converted an area along Maple Street into a mini zoysiagrass "Green" putting green, laying sod and setting the foundational framework for the project. Since the initial installation, the Turf Club has maintained and developed the space and recently planted native grasses surrounding the sod for protection. The project will also be used to supplement instruction in courses in turfgrass science, offering another hands-on learning experience for students in horticulture.

The Horticulture Department also dedicated time and effort to reviving the Horticulture Club's designated space, located on the east side of the greenhouses. The area had become overgrown and difficult to access, prompting students and faculty to work together to clear excess vegetation and debris to create a more accessible space for students. This area will not only host club meetings, but also provide the department with a valuable space for students to gather, work and develop projects throughout the academic year.

After initial renovations, the department has discussed future improvements, including adding flagstone and picnic table to improve the space's functionality for students.

The work contributed by horticulture friends, faculty, staff and students brought together members of the department and university community to create new opportunities for hands-on learning.

"I would like to thank all of our One Day, One U of A and other donors who support the department's learning activities," Savin said. "Their donations helped make these Horticulture Teaching Garden improvements possible. Donor contributions supported efforts to bring people together to work on the gardens during our Teaching Garden Volunteer Days and helped the department acquire new supplies and the plants that we have added to the gardens."

The two new teaching gardens, zoysiagrass "Green" putting green and renovated student spaces have expanded opportunities for students to learn and work outside the classroom while also contributing to the overall landscaping of the campus.

Through these spaces, horticulture students can develop practical skills, collaborate with others and gain experience with real-world horticultural processes, all right on campus.

About the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences: Bumpers College provides life-changing opportunities to position and prepare graduates who will be leaders in the businesses associated with foods, family, the environment, agriculture, sustainability and human quality of life; and who will be first-choice candidates of employers looking for leaders, innovators, policy makers and entrepreneurs. The college is named for Dale Bumpers, former Arkansas governor and longtime U.S. senator who made the state prominent in national and international agriculture. For more information about Bumpers College, visit our website, and follow us on Twitter at @BumpersCollege and Instagram at BumpersCollege. 

About the University of Arkansas: As Arkansas' flagship institution, the U of A provides an internationally competitive education in more than 200 academic programs. Founded in 1871, the U of A contributes more than $3 billion to Arkansas' economy through the teaching of new knowledge and skills, entrepreneurship and job development, discovery through research and creative activity while also providing training for professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the U of A among the few U.S. colleges and universities with the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the U of A among the top public universities in the nation. See how the U of A works to build a better world at Arkansas Research and Economic Development News.