So, who says life can’t be a bed of roses?

Floriculture or flower farming, as it is popularly known, is a discipline of Horticulture, and is the study of growing and marketing flowers and foliage plants. Floriculture includes cultivation of flowering and ornamental plants for sales or for use as raw materials in cosmetic and perfume industry and the pharmaceutical sector. The persons associated with this field are called floriculturists.

Karnataka is the leader in floriculture, accounting for 75% of India's total flower production. The employment opportunities in this field are as varied as the nature of work itself. One can join the field of floriculture as farm/estate managers, plantation experts and supervisors, project coordinators etc. Research and teaching are some other avenues of employment in the field. Marketing of Floriculture products for different ventures is emerging as a potential segment of this field. Besides one can work as consultant, landscape architect etc with proper training. One can also work as entrepreneur and offer employment to others. In addition to these careers which involve research and actual growing of crops, floriculture also provides service career opportunities such as floral designing, groundskeeping, landscape designing and horticultural therapy.

Floriculture is not available as a subject at the undergraduate/degree level. Those who wish to join the floriculture stream should enrol for an undergraduate course in Agriculture after which they can opt for an MSc in Horticulture at the post graduate level. An MSc in Horticulture offers specialisations in floriculture, pomology, and olericulture. Students graduating in these subjects find jobs with companies as supervisors, farm or estate managers, handling large-scale production of certain varieties of flowers.