Last month I let my Certified Professional Horticulturist certification expire. That may seem like an odd thing to announce, but since I've mentioned "CPH" as one of my credentials, it's only fair to announce I'm no longer a part of the program.
So why did I do that? The short answer is that I'm not currently working at a retail nursery, or self-employed full-time as a landscaper, or doing other jobs where the certification would be relevant. It costs money to participate in these organizations, and right now it doesn't make sense to belong to it. I've renewed this cert for years, and even when I was working at a retail nursery that was supposed to give me a $0.50 raise once I got my CPH, it didn't happen. I'm not saying the only reason to be a member should be for personal gain, but at some point I do need to consider the practical reasons. And it's not like I can't go through the whole process again if I feel like it's worth it. Times are rough right now, so I've got to be frugal and pragmatic about this.
Digging deeper, I find myself wanting to speak about a few things that make me uncomfortable about organizations like the WSNLA (Washington State Nursery & Landscape Association), which provides the certification. It's a nuanced take, and I feel a little bad for even going here... but who am I kidding? No one actually reads this blog (who even blogs these days, right?). There's a lot that I like about this organization and certification. The individual members are friendly folks who love plants and want to help make this industry more, well, professional. They network closely with horticulture programs and offer scholarships every year, and I'm very grateful to have received a scholarship during one school quarter. It's useful for the public to have a reliable network of nursery and landscape professionals to help them with their gardening endeavors. In my experience, the general public tends to look down on people who work with plants, assuming that most are unskilled laborers, and that assumption also has a real effect on workers' paychecks. It takes education, experience, and knowledge to understand and apply horticultural principles, and there need to be ways to demonstrate this expertise. In principle, I'm in agreement.
However, how does that play out in reality? With predictably the same results as a lot of professional organizations. There are continuing education requirements every year (something that I again agree with in principle -- one always needs to keep up with their industry), and WSNLA meetings (which cost money to attend) count toward those credits. I often attended these meetings, and the uncomfortable demographic representation was always immediately obvious. Besides the current students, it was largely made up of white, heteronormative, upper-class business owners. Even though WSNLA's own events counted as continuing education, they rarely provided any educational content; it had more of an elite country club feel than anything else. I sometimes attended a meeting after a day of working at a nursery or doing landscaping, and I'd be sweaty and covered in mud, but I'd walk through the door and be surrounded by people who were dressed to the nines like they were at a business conference. Just a tad awkward. It was clear that the group, despite the principles I wish it had, was mostly for successful business owners. There's a large group of people missing from those meetings who have skills and experience, but aren't at the top of the hierarchy. And that hierarchy felt palpable.
I'm sorry if that sounds harsh. The problems that I've outlined here are problems that exist within the whole industry, and more broadly with the entire concept of professionalism. I'm trying to look at this organization (and all groups I belong to) and see why I felt so much dissonance, and that means looking at it through a decolonization lens. I'm also distancing myself from a lot of the status quo ways of changing landscapes into ridiculous displays of conspicuous consumption, whether it's hyper-controlled beds of ornamental plants or a blanket of turf grass. These kinds of accounts inevitably become a part of one's routine, and I'm getting particular about the kinds of work I'm willing to do. My focus has turned toward sustainable agriculture, food justice, and habitat restoration, along with undoing the harm caused by colonization and hierarchical power structures. "CPH" just holds smaller and smaller relevance to those goals as the years go by.
My associate's degree in environmental horticulture covers all the concepts that are tested in the CPH exam. I continue my own education in the books I read, the events I attend, the news I consume, and the projects I bring to fruition. When I'm ready for certifications that will help my family and community, I'll pursue them with intentionality. But for now I'm taking a more critical look at the entire concepts of hierarchies, capitalism, institutional racism, gatekeeping in academia, certifications (be it something like CPH, or even a label like "USDA certified organic"), and how they intersect. It feels best to step away from this particular cert, and if it hurts some future job prospect, I accept that consequence.
(To be clear, I don't want to make anyone feel bad for being a part of WSNLA or putting in the time and money to become a CPH. It's a difficult industry to make a living in, and these certifications do show one's expertise to the future employers and to the public. Like I said, it's a nuanced take.)
