On Wednesday, March 26th, Greeley West’s Floriculture team competed against about 200 other kids. They ended up placing 14th in this competition, and in another just before Spring Break they placed 7th.
Junior and first year member Abigail Ortega said, “We get 40 minutes to create different flower arrangements. Then there is the “Keep or Cull” section where we get different types of flowers and we rank them based on their quality and whether or not they should be used in an arrangement. We need to know all the different kinds of flowers and their common and scientific names.”
All the contenders are then scored individually, and individual scores are combined with team scores to get a total score.
The written section is also split into its own subsections as well and competitors get scored on each. Exam one is about general knowledge so really anything including plant structures, functions, or processes. Exam 2 is about plant disorders including causes, effects, and remedies. Then a section for plant identification and one for tool identification.
First year member and sophomore at Greeley West, Scarlette Howell said, “It was a lot better than last week’s competition, we just didn’t do that well. I feel really good about general knowledge because it’s easy to guess and get it right, but we didn’t really study tools or disorders and it really showed.”
The team has a lot to work on going forward, but they are hopeful for the future. Abigail Ortega said, “One of the first things I noticed was that our team was a lot younger compared to everyone else. Most of the other teams were made up of seniors that have competed in floriculture for all four years. I found it pretty intimidating considering how young we are in comparison.” Despite being young, all members still managed to score decently well and their placing reflected that. Being to be beat out some more experienced teams go to show the potential the team has going forward. As of right now though they have a ways to go. Howell also said, “The other teams have done it for all 4 years and they’re good at, but for us it’s still just our first year.”
