News: Media Kits: Georgia Agricultural Resources

Ornamental Horticulture

With Georgia's excellent climate, it's no surprise that horticulture is one of the fastest growing segments in Georgia agriculture. Gross sales of nursery and turf products grown in Georgia in 1998 totaled nearly $350 million. Bedding plants, cut flowers, potted flowering plants, floriculture, foliage plants and propagative materials, have a combined total in 2001 of over $360 million in value. Floriculture contributed the most with $180 million in total value. The landscape and retail garden center sector is worth over $1.2 billion to Georgia agriculture. Georgia has more than 19,500 acres producing horticultural products and ranks seventh in the nation in production.

Georgia is home to four of the nation's Top 100 Nursery Growers and to the largest nursery east of the Mississippi River. Several of the best landscape companies in the nation, as well one of the nation's largest, family-owned retail garden chains, are located in metro Atlanta. Atlanta is also home to the nation's number one retailer of plants through home and garden center stores.

The horticulture industry has a long history in the state of Georgia, thanks in large part to the former P.J. Berckman's Fruitlands Nursery near Augusta. Berckman's influence is still seen all across the South through his work in the fruit and ornamental industry. In 1908 the U.S. Department of Agriculture declared that he had done more for American horticulture than almost any other man. Fruitlands Nursery became a world-class experimental station as well as a botanical garden that disseminated many of the most valuable plants of the Southern horticulturist including honey peaches, Kelsey plum, Japanese persimmon, hardy lemon, Amoor River privet, Berckman's dwarf arborvitae, eleagnus, wisteria, and other fruits and ornamentals. Fruitlands Nursery is still at the forefront of interest in Georgia. The nursery is now known as the Augusta National Golf Club and annually hosts the Masters Golf Tournament. The Augusta National Club House is the original family home of the Berckmans.

Today's horticultural industry employs more than 40,000 Georgians. Once Georgia-produced horticultural products are sold and established in the landscape, the added value of the product exceeds $2 billion annually.

Horticulture, "Georgia's Green Industry," provides an environmentally beneficial product and is a thriving business in the state.

 

More Information

• Department of Horticulture, UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
• Nursery information: Publications, Disease Control and Related Links from the Bugwood Network
• UGA Ornamental Commodity
• Chemical Application Information

 

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