Landscape project design for undergraduate students enrolled in Ornamental Horticulture in Oman

The Sultanate of Oman is located on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It is the second-largest country in the Peninsula, with an area of 212,460 sq km. Most of the country is a desert and the climate is generally hot and and for most of the year. Therefore, Oman is suitable only for and landscape, or zeriscape, that utilizes mostly native plants. Sultan Qaboos University is the only public university in the country. Landscape program is a new field that is now being established in the College of Agricultural & Marine Sciences. As a beginning, the students were enrolled in an introductory course in landscape architecture with two credit hours. They have to practice applied landscaping as a requirement of an undergraduate course in Ornamental Horticulture. The procedure and results that will be discussed in this paper will include the three stages of site selection, concept and computer-aided landscape designs, and evaluation of the student work by local experts in the field of landscape horticulture. Reflections of the student landscape learning abilities and outcomes will be discussed.