The department of Landscaping was established in 1998 by a governmental decree. This adds to a total five major fields of specialization at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and it was the first of its kind to be established in Lebanon. This endeavor came to meet the demands of the job market in Lebanon and the region and to create more job opportunities to our graduates.
This was based on our belief that a graduate with a background in agricultural Sciences is more qualified to make use of a plant for decoration as well as its productivity for nutritional purposes. What plant to grow, where, when and how, are questions which a graduate of this specialization only can answer adequately in order to create a better environment with green spaces. This knowledge, together with courses during the fifth year about basic landscape architecture, drawing, space management, landscape horticulture, landscape design and landscape irrigation and floriculture are the basic subjects which constitute this department.
A student enrolled in this department takes 30 credit hours (450 hrs actual time) during his fifth year, after successfully completing four years of basic agricultural sciences given in the faculty for all students. In addition, a student must prepare a landscape design of an area or a location of public interest, as a project to submit with a dissertation and a "maquette" to a committee of three professors specialized in this field.
This department is three years old and about twenty landscaping projects were prepared so far on public locations in different parts of Lebanon supervised by professors specialized in America, France and Canada.
Two years ago a convention was signed between the National Institute of Horticulture (I.N.H.) in Anger's (France) and the Faculty of Agriculture at the Lebanese University, which includes exchange visits by professors and students in the field of landscape Horticulture and rural planning. This includes a yearly visit of two professors from Angers to our faculty for a about a week to give intensive lectures to our students on Landscaping. Several of our students have already enrolled in Angers to study for a higher degree in this field.
The department of landscape horticulture and rural planning is vital for this country. It was established at a time when it has become urgent to care for an environment that has been devastated by a chaotic way of construction by cements without planning that takes into consideration health factors, touristic factors and home values, together with maintaining the historical value and the characteristics of the area concerned. Landscaping is no longer the work of an amateur, it is a well studied performance based on multidisciplinary scientific principles.
By creating this department, the Faculty of Agriculture at the Lebanese University participates in an active role towards maintaining a beautiful environment by a better management of land and green spaces, and by creating new green areas and public gardens to face population growth that is increasing at an alarming rate, in addition to the migration of people into the cities which leads to more houses, more offices and factories without any planning.