Episode Transcript
PART II: DAVIS INNOVATIVE HORT
Sarah Beck: You're listening to Garden Futurist. I'm Sarah Beck, here with Haven Kiers. Hi, Haven.
Haven Kiers: Hi. Thanks for having me.
Sarah Beck: I hate to start you on the hardest question. You and I have been in this world for quite a while. One might say we're reaching a certain age of authority. Especially over the last decade, there's been some hand wringing in our industry, I think, about it's “The End of Botany.” There was something literally about “the botanical education extinction.”
You are in an academic setting, so you especially appreciate academic treatment, I'm sure, of looking at the data. There are people who have collected some data on something that is real, which is there has been a decline in number of programs that—we'll just call it the whole allied horticulture professions, whether that has to do with botany, design, plant science—this is a field that has lost some academic programs over time. We know that's been documented.
Part of me wants to ask some questions about that, because I also suspect that some programs that existed weren't meeting the needs of the future, and perhaps they folded because of other reasons. And I also see young people haven't stopped being interested in plants, and really, in general, no one has stopped being interested in plants.
So, what do you think when you hear people say, like, “We're going through the botanical education extinction,” or, “Nobody cares about plants”?
Haven Kiers: I'm seeing it. There's no question that it is a reality. I mean, I would say here at Davis, the horticulture program was its own major at one point, it's now been folded into plant sciences and has become a major area of emphasis within plant sciences, and it’s horticulture and urban forestry.
Even when looking at hiring, right now the interest is more in the physiology and the real, pure scientific as opposed to ornamental horticulture. We're not seeing it. It's all going into the really hard sciences within plant sciences. There's still interest and our students in landscape architecture are still taking environmental horticulture classes on taxonomy and plant ID, these sorts of things, but it's not as much.
That said, I think that what you are talking about is student interest is huge. I think part of it is that the programs that did exist were sort of old school. And didn't meet necessarily what these needs were in thinking about urban futures.
It was either training just for nursery production and doing the same old, same old ornamental plants—that are the ones that even in the plant ID classes that students learn—it is the same, yes, it's 300, but it's the same 300 ornamental species that have been there for however many years. That, I think, has been an issue. So I think there's been pushback, but I will say that I feel like in other areas, then, fine, they're not following that traditional kind of thing, but what we're seeing is other options opening up.
Here on campus, we've got the arboretum offering their internships, their Learning by Leading internships. Those are hands-on internships, where students are actually learning sustainable horticulture. They're learning about native plants and ecological gardens. They're learning nursery production by doing it. That is seen as additional bonus, not necessarily pure curriculum, but they are getting that.
Those programs are absolutely packed and we're seeing there is pushback within the students who are taking horticulture and doing that as their major, they want more classes like that.
I was hired in the landscape architecture program because we didn't have anyone who did plants. What I'm finding, the way that I've been teaching classes about plants within my program, is that it really does need to be on a focus of innovation, of looking at urban opportunities and not just saying typical, “This is how planting design is done,” and that sort of thing. I've got to think more creatively to get people excited.
Sarah Beck: I'm so glad you said that. There are innovative programs that are meeting the needs of students today, and figuring out what those future careers are going to be, and making sure there is a relevant path here for people to follow who want to enter these fields, and what are they going to end up doing?
Haven Kiers: That's exactly it. I think the experiential learning—through the internships, definitely, on campus—but also that’s what I try and put in every single one of my classes, is that the students are out there and that they are actually building and doing and understanding.
I teach a class that's called Plants in the City, it's all about integrating vegetation into the urban fabric. So every single project, they're actually going out into the community.
Like their first project is they have to do a seed dispersal system, and they actually have to create something that disperses seeds into the urban environment. One year, we did seed dispersal by bike, because we partnered with the local bike group.
These are just California annual wildflower seeds, but you learn what will grow and what doesn't, but also what gets weeded or weed-whacked in the urban environment—and how crazy it is that some of these, you'll see places with the weeds like craziness, but your wildflowers get picked out every single time.
I mean, really, really learning that sort of thing. And then there's always a project.
Like we’ve designed a bus stop for SolTrans that had like a little reading area, that had pollinator plants and interpretive signs in a tough, underserved neighborhood in Vallejo, adding this kind of floral oasis and giving students the chance to design, and it was actually built. That's the beauty, and the students could help build it.
So that's what I'm trying to give, is the actual experience, but in a fun and interesting way, and not in this didactic rule-following.
Sarah Beck: Well, and it's interesting. We do have a set of tools that are evolving.
When I think back to when I was having to use a dichotomous key—and still, I'm sure that there is value there, and I'm sure there are students that can get something out of doing the old-school method. I've heard that young people love analog things.
This idea of utilizing some of the technology we do have, I enjoy using my iNaturalist Seek app regularly.
I ran into a couple of naturalists on a trail last weekend and they were in their seventies, and they said, “What do you think this is?” And I was like, “Hold on, let me get out the Seek app.” They're like, “We just used our Seek app.”
Haven Kiers: Oh, that's so good!
Sarah Beck: I was like, “Aww.” That was really nice.
Haven Kiers: Here I was at the arboretum, the person who didn't know anything. Where I actually learned everything that I know about California gardens and working was with my volunteers.
So it was working with these women who had done this for years and years and years—and had more knowledge than I could ever have—just telling me, “Don't be afraid to cut that to the ground. If it doesn't come back, it wasn't meant to be there,” and just being ruthless and going for it and knowing what looked good and trying new plants and not being afraid.
I want students to experiment and fail wildly and learn from that and get better. Yeah, giving them the opportunity to do that without saying, “Oh no, you got that wrong.”
Sarah Beck: It sounds like the innovative program at Davis is really uncovering some practices around evolving the way horticulture and design is taught.
Haven Kiers: It's not just this staid old thing, that every class that I teach really, really focuses on maintenance. On the labor involved, and the people who do it, and the need for it. I try and talk about it as weeding therapy and the health and wellness benefits of spending time in nature if you're weeding and have meetings with students outside while we weed.
For designers, so much of the curriculum is just about sitting behind a computer these days, and coming up with these designs, and then going out and pointing where things go and walking away.
I want students to understand what goes into it, and understand how to grow good plants, and how to maintain them, and who is maintaining them. Really importantly, how do you build relationships with the people that are building and maintaining, so that you're not just this person standing and pointing, and that you can talk to them?
It's everything. More importantly, that's also how these students are going to get jobs, is by talking and networking and understanding and being a good person.
Sarah Beck: Let's talk about that. I mean, what kind of career outcomes are you seeing from the program? Is some of that evolving and changing as far as what jobs you're seeing folks going into now?
Haven Kiers: I mean, I think we will always have people going straight into work at a landscape architecture firm. It’s a professional program, it’s accredited, and that's where people are going. That said, I am seeing a lot of students just going and trying a bunch of different things.
The reason I love landscape architecture is because it lets you go into so many different areas, and you don't have to just focus on one thing and that’s what you do always. You can be ecological, if you want to focus on that, and work on the ecological side. You can work on ornamental and art side. You can work on community engagement. All of that.
We're seeing people work as consultants for firms, ecological consultants, design consultants. A lot of folks are going into the public sector. So we're seeing students go and work at CalTrans, in different planning departments, National Park Service, a lot of different nonprofits. It's fun to see, but then we're also seeing a lot of them go and work in nurseries and do that for a couple of years because they're like, “I want to get more experience.”
A lot of them want to do design-build. That, I think, is a new trend, where it used to be just like, “Let's go into the firm.” A lot of students really like that connection between the design and then being able to see it through and are super excited about that. That warms my heart. I love it.
Sarah Beck: You've tempted them by letting them do things hands-on. Once their hands are dirty...
Haven Kiers: Letting them play, exactly. That's what I'm trying for.
Going into fields that feel like there may be landscape architecture or horticultural adjacent, and I think that's one of the things that I keep trying to tell. Again, it all adds up and it doesn’t have to be this linear process. I think students are starting to understand that.
It runs the gamut and it's really cool to see where people end up and where they're going.
Sarah Beck: A landscape architecture program, or really any horticulture-allied professional degree program that evolves with this diversity of skills and looks to the future needs of our communities, as you mentioned, the urban space as being such a critical element.
Haven Kiers: I think there are so many, like green infrastructure, for example, is huge.
I have a student who went and worked for a company that did living walls. I have students who are working doing green roof design. Lots of bioswales and rain gardens.
They've gotten that experience because we've talked about it or they've done internships or they've built rain gardens. So they have the confidence to go in and say that this is something good or even giving them like, “Yeah, I'm not dogmatic about only native plants, but I am going to talk about the benefits of native plants and if we can incorporate them in ecological.”
So giving them, too, that confidence to go in and say, “Maybe a native plant is the right one for this design.”
Sarah Beck: I'm just thinking in terms of advice for someone, and I think this could be mid-career professionals as well as young students who are about to think about their undergraduate or graduate programs.
I personally believe there is a plant career for everyone. Years ago I had this idea of doing kind of a Myers–Briggs test and I had some interns who did it. It was totally hilarious. It was totally like a bunch of ridiculous questions that would kind of lean you toward, “Oh, actually maybe you are interested in plant physiology.”
Haven Kiers: Oh, I love that.
Sarah Beck: “Maybe you should be the designer,” all of these things.
Haven Kiers: Right.
Sarah Beck: Yeah, I'm just curious if you have any advice for someone who is really thinking about how to have an impact in this world.
I have to say, I was so inspired when I came to your class last fall. You had a really large class of design students, and when I asked them about the impacts of climate change and what they were thinking about that, it was so present.
I have to say, that is a difference between now and a decade or two ago. There was such an obviousness to, “This is right in front of us. We're looking at climate change. There's nothing else for us to do, but to try to solve for this future.”
There is an optimistic place where anyone who's interested in getting into one of these related fields and making a difference can do that.
Haven Kiers: Well, exactly, and actually make an impact.
What I love about this field is that there are so many entry points. This has always made me just so joyful that I was able to go to a master's program in landscape architecture at a mid-career level and be with people who were from different—I mean, there were environmental scientists. There were people from nonprofits. There were artists.
That everyone was able, at that point in their career, say, “Actually, I'm going to pivot a little. I want to make a change. I've been writing policy. I've been creating art.” Whatever.
We did a three-year program and then off we went. And that, I think, is so cool. And that it doesn't have to be landscape architecture, but it could be horticulture.
Sarah Beck: You did mention earlier, just referencing kind of what the horticulture and program is housed under.
Haven Kiers: Here at Davis, it goes definitely across two different colleges. So there's the college of ag, and then the college of, I think, it's literature and sciences.
So within those two colleges, there's the environmental horticulture and urban forestry, there's plant biology, there's ecological management and restoration, there's environmental science and management, landscape architecture, all then the plant physiologies.
So lots of different avenues. Even community and regional development, to a certain extent, it can be like land-use planning and that sort of thing.
So, lots and lots of different options within it that allow you to talk about plants, and then where I am is within the landscape architecture program, which is, pretty interestingly, housed within the Department of Human Ecology.
So we have within our department, human development, community and regional development, and landscape architecture.
Sarah Beck: There’s a lot of options.
I think it’s really exciting when we can hear about a program directly from students who experience it.
I spoke with Mavi Arias, recent graduate of the landscape architecture program in the Department of Human Ecology at the University of California, Davis.
I spoke with Mavi about her experiences and how she found connectivity to career and community, within the program and beyond.
I'm really curious, what originally attracted you to the design program at UC Davis? Was there a particular moment or a course of study that that led you into being interested in that program?
Mavi Arias: At the beginning, when I started at UC Davis, I wasn't sure what type of design I wanted to do. I just knew I wanted to do design, and I ended up taking LDA 001, which is Introduction to Environmental Design, and that's how I discovered landscape architecture.
I feel like that's how everything changed for me, and I started to see the campus, Davis, and everything in a different way. The way that Davis is designed, and UC Davis is to be a very walkable city, to be able to take the bus everywhere you go, to bike everywhere. That makes a big change for me, because of the environment where I grew up, I didn't have the privilege to be able to go outside and be able to enjoy public spaces that were safe for me growing up.
Sarah Beck: It sounds to me like there's a lot of hands-on opportunities in the UC Davis design program. Can you talk a little bit about that? I realize it's probably not just theoretical.
Mavi Arias: There's a big range of classes, from having the chance to take a design and build class with Haven where we have Hunt Hall Courtyard, where everything that's there, it has been built by the students. So it's kind of like a laboratory for us to experiment and get the chance to try your design, going from paper to actually having it to be actually built by us. So it does change the way you see the perspective. You see your designs.
I immigrated here when I was 15 years old. I had a chance to do high school here and also my undergrad here, and it was very, very difficult for me to find a single community, and I'm very trying to do the community thing and all of that. Even though I love the design program, the landscape architecture program at UC Davis, I was lacking that community sense.
I was able to discover NAMLA, which is National Association of Minority Landscape Architects. It's a non-profit based in Los Angeles area. I was able to create a student chapter with a group of my friends, where we aim to increase the diversity in our department, where we're able to hold different type of programs, such as offering office tours, LinkedIn headshots, more activities to bring more people together so they're able to see more people that are similar to their backgrounds.
So that's something that I grew to develop as I was in the program.
Sarah Beck: So basically, throughout your experience in the UC Davis design program, you had this supportive parallel community. How do you feel that you are now applying what you learned in the program?
Mavi Arias: As I continue to work with NAMLA, I have been working with different universities. I work as a chapter liaison, so I've been able to help other universities to create their own student chapters, like going from Florida to North Carolina.
This past spring break, UC Davis was able to hold a bash, which is a conference for landscape architecture but only for students. So I was able to go back and be the NAMLA representative of national NAMLA. I was able to rep other students from across the country where we, the student chapter of UC Davis, held a whole event for all the student chapters. And that was the first time we were able to have student from all across country meet up and be able to share their stories.
Sarah Beck: What was unique about the UC Davis design program itself and why you were really excited and engaged in that?
Mavi Arias: I believe what was unique for me, it was the professors and how we had a chance to be one-on-one, even though it was a small major. We are a very close cohort, and we spent a lot of time together, with my classmates and my professors. So I got the chance to develop that relationship with them, and being able to work with them and their projects.
I had the chance to work with Haven in her research project Sheepmowers where we bring the sheep for three days and they mow on the ground and we try to see how it's impacting the people in the UC Davis campus and how it's also like, we're seeing, “Oh, are they really mowing their lawn? What's the increase?” And pesticides and also like bringing up awareness to the public about that.
Sarah Beck: Can you talk a little bit about some of those hands-on experiences were a really rich part of your experience, that gave you some skills that you are now applying?
Mavi Arias: Post-graduation, I was able to work with Emily. She was a professor, also, under my undergrad, and I was working as a research assistant with a partnership with the US Forest Service, and also a non-profit, Outward Bound Adventures, it's a non-profit located in Pasadena. They're trying to diversify the outdoors to bring more minority youth into the outdoors.
So we wanted to investigate how is it impacting them and we were doing surveys. They do trips, from one day to three days. They teach them about the environment, the ecology, the national parks and Indigenous people, and we were trying to see what's the impact of that.
Because many research papers and many programs, they like to focus a lot on the why. “Why is that happening?” But not many of them try to focus on solving that issue. I feel like that's why it was so powerful to be able to see an organization that was trying to solve that problem instead of focusing on the why.
I had that chance because of UC Davis and because of the close relationships I have with my professors, and they led me to be able to do all of this.
Sarah Beck: What I'm finding really fascinating about some of the stories you're telling is that UC Davis is a central hub with these almost spokes of connectivity to other opportunities.
It sounds to me like the National Association of Minority Landscape Architects, this opportunity involving the forest service, this project to increase diversity in the out outdoors and Outward Bound. These are different organizations and areas of work that really weave together with landscape architecture in a really interesting way. The reach of them is so much beyond just this one university program.
Something that is unique about the UC Davis program, it seems like, is just the layers of other opportunities that are providing connectivity when you're there.
Mavi Arias: I feel like all the classes and all of that, they were meant for us to get to know the local community.
I took a class, a planting class, and we were able to collaborate with Ruhstaller Farm and were doing like a green wall. So we went over there and we gave a presentation and we were able to hear from the owner. I didn't know about that place until we took a field trip over there, like knowing the local community.
We also were able to do a planting design for the Davis Library, and we were able to present these designs to the public. I think it was a pretty good experience to how it would work in the professional world. It was local, we were able to get to know the community. We are also students, like we're living there, so we know what's affecting this community.
So I feel like that's something also very unique for UC Davis, the very hands-on experience. Everything you see from there, all the planting is done by the students.
Sarah Beck: Yeah, that's a really incredible aspect, right?
What is your advice to someone either who is a mid-career professional looking to move toward landscape architecture, or someone who is a young person just looking at all the array of degree and certificate programs that are out there?
What would you advise someone who's looking to get into a career in landscape architecture right now?
Mavi Arias: I guess, be prepared to be surprised.
Sarah Beck: Why surprised?
Mavi Arias: Because you get to know the world in a different way. Unless you're into environmental science or very passionate about environmental issues and ecology and all of this, you won't be able to understand how important it is to have a walkable city, how important is to have a pollinator garden, and all of this, or a rain garden. It's a bunch of issues that all connect together and we don't even imagine how it all connects together, and many of them don't know what they're coming to.
So I guess like, be prepared to be surprised.
Sarah Beck: Yeah, I love that answer. What are your big dreams right now as far as your own career? What are you excited to do, or what areas do you do you hope to impact?
Mavi Arias: I’m very thankful for my professors who guided me to go for my master's program of land architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.
I'm a first-generation immigrant. First person to graduate high school here, first person to graduate college here, and I wanted to do even more. Having that connection with my professors and them guiding me through applying for graduate school, I'm so thankful for that.
There's a connection of the underserved communities and the climate changes, like, the neighborhoods who doesn't have the same amount of opportunities, they're closely connected to the climate, and all of these issues that are affecting them.
Even for natural disasters, the underserved communities are the most affected, you know? So how can we prepare these communities that they don't know about? It's, again, educating the next generation, like we want to make sure these people, these youth are going to be able to have access to outdoor areas. And the only way for us to be able to do that is educating them.
Resources
Haven Kiers and Mavi Arias are connected to the landscape architecture + environmental design program in the Department of Human Ecology at the University of California, Davis.
Kiers also mentioned the Learning by Leading internship at the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden, as well as programs in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and College of Letters and Science.
Arias also mentioned the Hunt Hall Courtyard, the Sheepmowers program, her work with Outward Bound Adventures, and the green wall at Ruhstaller Farm.
National Association of Minority Landscape Architects
Seek, by iNaturalist
American Society of Landscape Architects. 2024. “LABash 2024 Conference at UC Davis Draws More than 400 Attendees.” LAND. Press release. April 14, 2024.
Brown, Alyssa J., Phil S. Allen, Greg V. Jolley, and J. Ryan Stewart. 2019. The Downward Trend in Postsecondary Horticulture Program Availability between 1997 and 2017.” HortTechnology 29 (4): 417–422.
Crisci, Jorge V., Liliana Katinas, Maria J. Apodaca, Peter C. Hoch. 2020. “The End of Botany.” Trends in Plant Science 25 (12): 1173–1176.
Dobbyn, Tiffany. 2022. “UC Davis Landscape Architecture Students Redesign Vallejo Bus Stop.” UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Press release. November 16, 2022.
Reed, D.W., M.A. Arnold, R.D. Lineberger, T.D. Davis. 2016. “Challenges of higher education in the US – what will horticulture of the future look like?” Acta Horticulturae 1126: 205–218.
Stroud, Sebastian, Mark Fennell, Jonathan Mitchley, Susannah Lydon, Julie Peacock, Karen L. Bacon. 2022. “The botanical education extinction and the fall of plant awareness.” Ecology and Evolution 12 (7).
