I'm Jaden Holland and I'm a topiary savant.
I'm Sydney Schwarz, and I'm an out-of-the-box topiary designer.
My name is Olivia Cook, topiary enthusiast.
I've known about the horticulture
and animal science program through central campus since sixth grade,
maybe a couple of weeks into the class starting Mr.
Anderson introduced FFA to us, started
attending and going to FFA and becoming a member.
And then it kind of just went from there.
I wanted to do the animal science part, but then I noticed that there was
horticulture, and I've always loved planting with my mom in the garden.
And I thought it was would be a good idea to get be a part of something like this.
And it's a really good atmosphere.
FFA has started from the class, which is animal science and horticulture.
And from there, I learned so much about animals, plants,
and I didn't even really know about showing animals.
But now here I am going to show my goat at the state fair and the county fair here.
It is part of the Florida Culture Club that we have here,
led by our teacher, Mrs. Becker.
Lots of different types of flowers and plants.
And we learn about what they are
and how we can manipulate them into what people will want.
Topiary is shaping plants into whatever you feel like.
What comes to your mind in that moment.
I think when people initially think of topiary,
they think of those big round bushes that you see a lining a driveway.
But topiary also doesn't always have to be so professional.
It can be a small hobby that you found yourself
liking and something that you do in your backyard.
And it's creative and it can be very personal and it doesn'
always have to be exact.
Most of the topiaries that we have our scented geraniums.
Some of the best topiary plants though could be your boxwood.
You could have herbs, you could have ivy, anything like that.
Pinching like right here?
Yeah, right here. So you want to make.
My goal is, is to first make sure that the plant is like healthy
and all the dead leaves are gone.
And then after I assess it, then I just kind of think about what
I want to do with the plant and how I want to shape it.
To me, it's very relaxing because I just like being around the plants
and just knowing that I am caring for these plants and making sure
that they don't get overgrown or that we can start new plants
and make sure that they are healthy is really relaxing for me.
So this is actually our first year
being able to showcase our work at the state fair,
and I know that everyone and myself included, is really excited
and I'm definitely excited to take my family out
and show it off and show what we've been working on.
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to that.
I definitely want to show like my mom and my dad,
because they've been wondering what I've been doing here.
It's kind of hard to explain to them.
OK, and then you take the other two on in here.
I recently just became an FFA officer.
It really opens up opportunities for you to work with animals
and other people and learn. Gentle, gentle, gentle.
It kind of opens up a lot of doors and you can just see how many fields
you can really go into under the big,
you know, animal science and horticulture umbrella.
About myself I found out that not only do I really care for animals, I really care
for the plants, and that the plants are very relaxing for me.
Oh... About plants
I've learned they have their limits, just like we have our limits.
And sometimes, like, but then also those limits can be pushed.