What is urban horticulture?
The early and initial focus of urban horticulture was on the new science of growing and using plants in cities. Its focus is on the problems and opportunities unique to city gardening: pollution, restricted root systems, anomalies of wind, light and water in urban canyons, the use of plants as climate or noise controls, and so on. Urban horticulture is different from traditional horticulture in that the focus is on hundreds of species, including both native and introduced, rather than on the production of a few economically important species. Today, this foundation built on horticultural principles and practices continues; however, it is being applied to a wider array of problems arising in human-impacted environments spanning from urban-industrialized areas to distant wilderness areas.
