Meet the Floriculture Team

Joyce Latimer – Greenhouse Horticulture

Dr. Latimer is the state Extension Specialist for Greenhouse Crops for Virginia. She assists county VCE agents in solving grower problems and developing educational programming for commercial greenhouse operators. She also serves as an educational advisor to the Virginia Flower Growers Association and the Southeast Greenhouse Conference. Dr. Latimer conducts research on plant growth and development with an emphasis on growth regulation of herbaceous perennials. She also works with conditioning, plant/pest relationships, and production of greenhouse-grown crops.

 

Holly Scoggins – Floriculture/Horticulture

Dr. Scoggins’ research interests include improving greenhouse and nursery production systems for herbaceous perennials with an emphasis on mineral nutrition. Other interests include flowering physiology of and production methods for new floriculture crops; also evaluation of potential crops for greenhouse forcing of high-value specialty cut flowers. She teaches Floriculture Crops Production and Herbaceous Landscape Plants I & II.

 

Velva Groover – Floriculture Research Specialist

Velva Groover holds a Master of Science in Horticulture and is responsible for managing the Floriculture research program. As an integral part of the program, she helps with several graduate projects along with Joyce and Holly's research. She also participates and presents at local and regional workshops and conferences.

 

Edwin Lewis - Turf and Landscape Entomology

The main focus of research in the Turf and Landscape Insects lab is integrated management of pests of turfgrass and ornamental crops. We are responsible for pest management in both the production phase of these crops (nurseries and sod farms) and in the landscape (golf courses, municipal parks, homeowners, etc.). The thrust of the research is to develop methods of biological control that are compatible with current production and management systems. We conduct a combination of basic research on the ecology and behavior of pest insects and their natural enemies and applied research on pest management in a wide variety of plant/insect systems.

 

Chuanxue Hong - Environmental Plant Pathology

Dr. Hong's lab conducts research on diseases of ornamental plants and turfgrasses. Our research interests encompass applied and basic aspects of plant pathology including molecular characterization and detection of plant pathogens, investigation of basic pathogen biology and ecology, epidemiology and innovative disease management strategies.

 

Current Graduate Students: Erin Gamrod, Sadie Puglisi, Sarah White, Paul Westerveldt (Master's)