Enjoying Columbus, Ohio and Cultivate'14.

Juli 20, 2014

A Moment before Kayaking, Photo by Jaci

Last week, 11-16 July 2014 I went to Columbus, Ohio to joining Cultivate'14. Cultivate'14 is recognized as the premier educational, networking experience, and trade show event for horticulture professionals in North America. This event attracting thousands of attendees to Columbus, Ohio in every July. This event was known as the OFA Short Course for more than 85 years and for this year AmericanHort changed its name to Cultivate'14. The trade show exhibits including technology, new plant varieties, new products and services for nursery and landscaping.

I joined this event with a big group from TOP (The Ohio Program) with 63 students/interns from different country such as Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil, China, Germany, Belgium, Netherland, Russia, Ukraine and many more. What a nice opportunity to meet and see them.

We started the first day with kayaking, going to the zoo, and watching Nascar race. It was my first time to kayaking. In Indonesia I have some experiences with body rafting or rafting but for kayaking it's new. It's not hard because of the water stream of the river was low. I did well in some sharp curves. Some students got their kayak flipped over.

After kayaking we went to Columbus Zoo. It was really nice place. I saw so many special animal that I've never seen before, polar bear, manatees, cheetah, gorilla, napoleon fish and many more. I felt special when I saw Indonesia's exhibit there. I think It is intended to show how rich our diversity and ecosystem to the world.

Polar Bear

My Favorite

At the birds exhibit I saw a couple beautiful bird, Jalak Bali or Bali Starling (Leocopsar rothschildi). It threw me back to about seven years ago when I and 15 other students from Lawalata IPB (Bogor Agricultural University nature club) did a research about this bird. This bird includes in CITES Appendix 1 list as an endangered species and restricted only can be find in Bali island. In 2007, we spent about one month in Nusa Penida island, located 14 km south east coast from Bali to learn the breeding process, their behavior and ecology, and how community support their population.

I thought that I will never see this bird again after seven years ago, especially in US.

A Couple of Jalak Bali

On the second day, I and other students started joining Cultivate'14. A great presentation from Nancy Rechcigl from Syngenta Flowers, "New Pesticide and Fungicide Development" delivered to my head. It's related to my background study, Plant Protection. She succeeded to bring me back to what I learned about. The second presentation was from Gary R. Doerr, president of Blooms of Bressingham, "People Working Together to Bring You Plants Your Garden would Choose".

After the presentations we had a free time to exploring the exhibition or joining the class. I joined Immigration, Regulatory and Health Care Info You Need to Know class and Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Interior Plantscape of Franklin Park Conservatory. The first class talked about Obama Care and so and took place in a conference room. The second one was the most interesting class for me. We went to Franklin Park Conservatory which is only about 15 minutes by bus from the exhibition place.

At Franklin Park

Surrounding by Beautiful Hydrangea

A Thousand Butterfly Made with Fabric Material

A Fairyland

The Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens is a premier horticultural and educational institution featuring botanical collections, art and nature-based exhibitions, plant shows and educational programs for all ages. I really had a good time by exploring the park and glasshouses. Within the glasshouses I experienced different climatic zones of the world including the Himalayan Mountains, Tropical Rainforest, Desert, Pacific Island Water garden, and also palm house. Here for the first time I recognized that the blown glass is really beautiful and fancy if you put it in garden. They looked engaged. Oh ya, It was really nice when butterfly flying around you.

Desert Glasshouse

The Blown Glass

On the second day, we joined a class from Bridget Behe, Ph.D., Michigan State University "Career Development in Global Horticulture". She opened wide my eyes how important to have a good relations and links to start a career. First thing to do is make business card.

I took one class on that day, it was "Getting Started with Biocontrol". There's three speaker: Suzanne Wainwright-Evans, Buglady Consulting; Richard Densel, Van Vugt Greenhouses Inc; and Alison Kutz, Sound Horticulture. It was an interactive class. I asked one question about spider mites on Colocasia and they gave me some suggestions to solve it.