CACC Horticulture classes to put on holiday floral sale, showcasing and selling their classwork
As the holiday season approaches, CACC Floral and Plant Design and Greenhouse Production classes are celebrating  with a holiday floral sale.
The floral and plant design students are selling  wreathes, and other Christmas decorations, that the students been preparing for over a month, teacher Sherie Rodekohr. The Greenhouse Production class began working on the poinsettias much earlier.
“We actually started the poinsettia crop right before school started,” Rodekohr said. “We got them potted and then they burn them since school started until now.”
Junior Katie King, a member of the Greenhouse Production class, said that poinsettias project, along with sale, has been the main focus of the class lately .
“We took care of the poinsettias and made sure that they were disinfected and weren’t being harmed by insects,” King said. “Now we’ve been setting the room up for the sale and making sure stuff was priced.”
Floral and plant design student, junior Julia Hill, said her class has designed several pieces, ranging from artificial and fresh wreathes to centerpieces to even swags.
Besides preparing for the holiday sale, students work on many projects throughout the year, King said.
“We put some bulbs in the freezer to make them think that it’s deep winter right now,” King said. “Then we will take them out and they will spring up here in a few months.”
However, recently students have been devoting their time solely to the upcoming sale. Rodekohr said the students are truly the coordinators of the store and are in charge of preparing it for the sale.
“We’ll have our cash register, just like a regular flower shop,” Rodekohr said. “We will have everything displayed, all the things that they made. We will bring up poinsettias from the greenhouse, so we will have a display of poinsettias in here.”
While the students have been busy getting the “store” ready for the holiday sale, Hill said that designing the pieces was the most rewarding, and also challenging, part of the process.
“The most fun has been the decorating and construction of the wreaths,” Hill said. “While the hardest part for me was making the centerpieces look equally good from all angles.”
Rodekohr noticed the creative spirits in her students during the designing portion, as they each pursued a unique process when given the same  materials to begin with.
“They all start with basic greens, pretty much the same [things], but they can switch things up a little bit. But then how they decorate is up to them,” Rodekohr said. “They can go elaborate, or simple. ”
By Abby Kempf