News and Releases

News Releases

NVCC’S Trial Roses Featured in Nursery Management Magazine

June 05, 2018

Beautiful foliage and spectacular blooms will greet anyone who visits NVCC’s Waterbury campus. Visit during the warm months and you’ll be surrounded by especially lush settings including an arboretum and more than a dozen blossoming gardens that dot the 110-acre campus. Many of these gardens go beyond providing a picturesque setting and serve as outdoor classrooms for horticulture students. One garden in particular is even helping to gather important data on determining the most sustainable, hardy, pest-resistant, and beautiful rose cultivars for use in American landscapes. As one of only 14 sites across the U.S. involved in The American Rose Trials for Sustainability (A.R.T.S.), NVCC is engaged in discussions with plant researchers from other universities and botanical gardens about developing a standard plant performance evaluation protocol that is unbiased, scientific, and capable of identifying which plants perform best in low-input conditions within each of the different climate regions of the United States.

Last year, Texas A&M University recognized NVCC’s Horticulture team as a Leader in the Rose Trials for Sustainability when it presented it with a Superior Service Award for the valuable research data it collected on more than 100 rose shrubs. It also praised NVCC for exceeding Texas A&M’s expectations by providing extensive feedback and critique of their plant performance evaluation protocol and data recording format. NVCC’s suggestions and specific efforts to streamline the data collection process catapulted it to a leadership role within the organization. This month, the American Rose Trials for Sustainability (A.R.T.S.) program announced its 2019 award-winning roses in Nursery Magazine. As an A.R.T.S. trial location, NVCC was mentioned in the article. To learn more about the winning roses, visit Nursery Management Magazine’s website.

NVCC is the only community college in Connecticut that offers a degree in horticulture. Through the program, students can continue their education at a four-year university or apply for employment in landscaping, greenhouses, garden centers or landscape design centers. For more information, contact NVCC’s Admissions Teamtoday.