Horticulture Club is a student-run club whose main focus is cultivating both soil and healthy minds. Nicole Ashwood, the club advisor and SHS librarian, describes horticulture as “a meeting of art, and science, and math, and calm. It’s got this emotional, rewarding thing.” 

In addition to growing flowers and other plants, the club also does campus clean-ups and ‘Maker Meetings.’ During these weekly Maker Meetings, club members spend their time doing a craft, such as making buttons. 

In 2018, Ashwood ordered 1,051 flower bulbs and planted them all around the school that same December. With the help of Coding Club, National Honor Society (NHS), Reserves Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), some orchestra members, and anyone else she could recruit, the club was able to plant all the future flowers. “My club is an everybody, anybody club,” Ashwood said. “It’s kind of like a revolving door.” 

Some students have chosen to participate in Horticulture Club as an alternative to detention. As part of the Restorative Justice Program, students are able to make an arrangement with their assistant principal to do campus clean-up with Horticulture Club.  According to Ashwood, many of those students have enjoyed working with the club, and the club members were happy to have them. Some of the students have continued working with the club, though not all do. 

The club will continue to trim bushes, grow plants, and clean up around the school in hopes of reaching their goals of service, personal improvement, and community betterment.