The discipline Landscape Plant and Ornamental Horticulture originated from the Teaching and Research Office of the Landscape Plant and Landscape Architecture Department of Zhejiang Forestry College, which was established in 1985. Today, there are 17 members of the discipline, including four professors, seven associate professors and three lecturers. There are two people from the Zhejiang Province New Century “151 Talent” project and two “young and middle-aged” Academic Leaders in Zhejiang Province, forming a teaching team with a durable structure, an active academic atmosphere, a truth-seeking spirit and a high level of professionalism. The discipline now has a “Flower Industry Innovation Team”, a “New Flower Variety Breeding and Coordination Team in Zhejiang Province”, a “Landscape Postgraduate Education Innovation Demonstration Base in Zhejiang Province”, an “Ornamental Botany” provincial-level teaching team, a “Floriculture” provincial-level Excellent Course and other teaching and scientific research platforms. The “Landscape Plant Germplasm Innovation and Utilization” Laboratory was established to provide support and guarantee for relevant talent cultivation, scientific research and social services.
I. Scientific Research
The discipline is mainly devoted to research on the systematic classification, development and utilization of landscape plant resources, germplasm innovation and the breeding of new varieties, the physiological ecology and cultivation management, the plant landscape, and the benefit evaluation, among other fields, to gradually form significant characteristics and advantages in terms of resources and classification, reproductive basis and reproduction ecology, molecular mechanism of woody plants flowering, and benefit evaluation of the plant landscape. During the “12thFive-Year Plan” period, the discipline has successively undertaken more than 50 projects for the National Natural Science Foundation of China, major science and technology projects for Zhejiang Province, and projects for the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province at the ministerial and provincial level or above, with total scientific research funds of over 12 million Yuan. Four awards at the provincial level or above were obtained, while 129 papers and 10 monographs have been published.
II. Talent Cultivation
The discipline supports the daily teaching and talent cultivation of postgraduate programs in “Landscape Plant and Ornamental Horticulture” and “Landscape Architecture”, and the undergraduate programs in “Landscape Gardening”(National Characteristic Major and Advantageous Major in Zhejiang Province),“Landscape Architecture” and “Landscape Art Design” and has provided more than 1,500 undergraduates and more than 300 masters to society. They are distributed in 25 provinces (cities) of China and throughout Zhejiang Province, and are an important backbone of government departments (at all levels—urban construction, landscape gardening, soil pipe, agriculture, forestry, tourism, etc.), industries and enterprises, and have made tremendous contributions to the talent cultivation in China, especially in Zhejiang.
III. Social Services
The discipline has long been closely connected with grassroots units, leading enterprises, and local governments, which, on the one hand, is to provide technical support to relevant units, and on the other hand, is to industrialize the scientific research findings. It comes down to the grass-roots level, and cooperates with local governments, to provide support for the regional agricultural structural adjustment and the building of new rural construction, to provide training and technical support for local farmers, and to guide farmers in actual production. The industry-university-research cooperation is carried out with the landscape leading enterprises in aspects such as the development and utilization of indigenous plants, the variety breeding and product development of traditional famous flowers, nursery stock container cultivation, the construction of plant landscapes and beautiful rural construction, to provide technical support and to generate considerable economic and social benefits.
