Most people tend to buy their loofah sponges from the store, but for senior Bowen Andell, he produces his own in his backyard.
“I grow loofahs, you can make them and save yourself money by using a natural resource instead of using microplastics in your regular sponge.”
Andell founded the Horticulture club in 2024, and he plans to make a career of it alongside spreading horticulture’s influence to other students who are interested.
“I love gardening,” Andell said. “The kind of career I want to go for is plant pathology- they do a lot with vegetation, horticulture and just plants overall. I’d love to give back to that community and spread the knowledge of horticulture as much as I can.”
Alongside Andell is Trisha Dunn, an AP biology teacher as well as the club’s sponsor; some of her scientific assignments coincide with things being taught in the horticulture club, such as plant physiology, anatomy, and more.
“We get more in depth with those plants and learn about how things work within all of these kinds of life,” Dunn said.
These lessons help add to the student’s knowledge of plants, which will be utilized for a variety of purposes within the club.
“We’d be planting, growing, maintaining, donating, and selling our plants to the community,” Dunn said. “We would also be helping the city parks by volunteering our time and helping with landscaping care in the Mont Belvieu or Houston area.”
Outside these activities, many field trips and out-of-school activities are planned to be added into the club’s schedule, as well as trips to assist the local community.
“We don’t have them officially planned, but we do have some ideas,” Andell said.
Dunn and Andell are currently trying to greenlight field trips to places such as the Carnivorous Plant Trail in East Texas, the Texas A&M College campus, and the Butterfly Dome in the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
Although these field trips are already hands-on with discovering more about plants, Dunn and Andell are also planning various activities that are focused on learning about the science and work that goes into horticulture.
“We’re going to have guest speakers speak about what horticulture can do not only for the plant sciences, but as well as pollinators or other ecosystem organisms that need plants,” Andell said. “We also want to take a couple field trips that can help educate others about the life of the plants.”
These trips and educators don’t just expand the students’ plant knowledge and awareness, but they also help students learn about how plants can help in ways you wouldn’t expect.
“By joining you’re also going to learn the importance of just the small plants that maybe don’t matter globally, but they can help out in your everyday life,” Andell said. “Growing a few tomatoes can save you money or, say, by growing a loofah, you can make sponges and save yourself money by using a natural resource instead of using microplastics in your sponge.”
Andell and Dunn are planning the club’s first informational meeting on Oct. 8, and regular club meetings are planned to be on Thursdays after school at least once a month.
With so many upcoming dates and events coming up in the club, it may come off as overwhelming, but Dunn assures students to join and get a lot of enjoyment out of horticulture.
“We’re gonna have a lot of fun, and even if you don’t have a love of plants or if you’re interested but don’t really know anything about plants, we encourage you to join and help our community,” Dunn said.
If you’d like to learn more about the club, visit Mrs. Dunn in room A281!
