Horticulturist Debra Coltharp tends to LSU campus scenery along with many other venues. She has devoted her life to making the campus of LSU alive and well.

 

Horticulture and agriculture are different because a horticultural area is a bunch of smaller concentrated areas of plants or crops. When describing what a horticulturalist does and its meaning, Coltharp mentioned, “it is hard to define, there is a lot to it.”

 

For eight hours daily, starting at six a.m., Coltharp arrives at work pulling weeds, tending to plant needs, and putting new plants into the ground. Pesticides and chemicals are the two most important items in doing this job. “I don’t like to use chemicals, but they are necessary to do this job.”

 

People who think this job is easy, try tending to 2,000 acres of land all day and sometimes having to work over time to finish the job. Sun rays beating down, sun screen sweating off, wearing pants, long sleeve shirts to block the sun rays, and humid Louisiana weather. Does that sound like an easy job?

 

“Winter is my favorite season because it’s less humid,” Coltharp joked. “It is a bad time for plants to be nourished but it’s great for me.”

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Coltharp mentioned how she plans to retire soon and is in the process of training new incoming horticulturists, but all though it will be hard to leave what she does as a job she will still have her own gardens at home to work in. She grew up on a ranch in a rural area working in the gardens around her home. “I thank my grandfather for my success,” she says with love and admiration when bringing up her grandfather.