Different types of horticulture

Highly diverse, the horticultural sector encompasses multiple activities that all stem from the art of cultivating gardens. It is a dynamic sector represented in France by several tens of thousands of companies specialized in the production, sale or use of plants. This represents nearly 170,000 jobs. However, French horticultural production covers less than half of national consumption and the country imports mainly from the Netherlands.

Summary: 

• Vegetable and fruit horticulture
• Ornamental horticulture
• Equipment and production methods

Horticulture continues to develop steadily in recent years to meet the ever-growing needs of consumers. It is not just about feeding the population, but also about ensuring product quality while respecting the environment. Thanks to technological advances in mechanization and automation, the various techniques used by French horticultural productions go hand in hand with more ecological concerns.

Depending on its different specializations, horticulture can be vegetable, fruit or ornamental, but it actually has many other variants. Excluded are all branches that are related to cereal, forestry or oilseed sectors, which fall directly under agriculture.

Focused on the cultivation of vegetable plants for food use, vegetable horticulture or market gardening is directly linked to our consumption patterns. It focuses on the fruit of plants belonging to the large family of legumes. Market gardeners sell their harvests either through short circuits (directly to consumers) at markets, or through long circuits via the agri-food industry, wholesalers and supermarkets.

Fruit horticulture and arboriculture both produce fruits intended for consumption. They encompass all types of fruits, including pome fruits, and involve orchard production.

Indoor or outdoor, ornamental horticulture aims to beautify gardens using ornamental plants or flowers cultivated professionally. It encompasses several branches of activities specialized in cut flowers and foliage, potted and bedding plants, nursery plants, or flower bulbs. In greenhouses or in the open air, the objective of floriculture is to bring out the beauty of flowers as best as possible through their colors, but also their fragrance.

Ornamental horticulture also joins the activity of nursery owners who raise young shoots to turn them into trees or shrubs destined to join parks. They can also take charge of the development of forest seedlings in a reforestation approach.

On a large scale, floriculture extends through the work of landscapers who shape green spaces by arranging flowerbeds as true floral compositions. Bedding plants generally adorn the borders of pathways to color gardens. There is a very wide variety of them. The development of landscape spaces can range from simple parks and gardens to entire municipalities and must take into account soil and vegetation maintenance.

All types of horticulture adopt varied production methods such as ground cultivation, soilless cultivation, permaculture, greenhouse cultivation or even aquaponics. In the latter case, waste produced by fish becomes nutrients for plants. In the case of greenhouse cultivation, plants grown inside a greenhouse have the advantage of benefiting from controlled and artificially adapted development conditions (light, humidity, temperature...). It not only allows the production of plants in regions poorly suited to their natural development, but also extends the harvest period.

As part of their activity, the horticulturist must equip themselves with suitable workwear and accessories such as cut-resistant gloves, work shoes and waterproof boots, or even safety glasses compliant with at least the EN 166 standard. Preferably choose work pants that allow wearing knee pads according to the EN 14404 standard. There are all kinds of thermal jackets, bodywarmers but also rain suits that will allow you to follow the evolution of the seasons without being hindered in your work.