Boy, Why Are You Crying?

Life Lesson #834: Learn how to multi-task.
On average, I am an excellent multi-tasker. A professional even. All those years of school doing homework, texting, listening to music or watching a movie, and hanging out with my roommates truly honed my skills. When I made it to Longwood, things were no different. I had to juggle watering, answering questions, perpetual hose problems, and mentoring high schoolers all at the same time. On one particular day, however, I found myself completely overwhelmed and unable to handle everything that was being thrown at me. Blame it on the heat. Blame it on my unusually low level of concentration. Blame it on the promise given me that I could get in the lily pools as soon as I was finished watering the hibiscus. Whatever melts your chocolate. So here I am in the 98 degree 98% humidity rose house watering the hibiscus when a family walks through. Considering the fact that thousands of people visit Longwood everyday, I didn't really pay any special attention to this family until the son asked if I could spray him in the face with my watering wand (that's not a typical request). I brushed it off as a joke. I mean seriously...surely he knows that's not a good idea. Not only do we use untreated water, but I also had the fertilizer on. Then, his mother starts in on me. While I'm politely telling her no, a man interrupts and starts preaching to me about callings. He's asking me if I feel close to God while I'm working at Longwood, if horticulture is my calling, and if I appreciate God making the world so beautiful with plants. About two thirds of the way through his sermon (I call it that because he was wearing a clerical collar and is therefore qualified to preach), I look up and that kid is misting his face with the water coming out of a hole in the hose. Really people? Really? So I interrupt my new buddy who is now trying to save my soul to save this kid's life (or at least his vision). When all the hubbub died down, I was left dumbfounded. Did that seriously just happen or was it a figment of my dehydrated imagination? Nope it was reality. I finished watering shortly afterwards and was able to retreat to the comfort of the lily pools for the rest of the day.

 
After a day like today, all I want to do is go home and relax until someone comes up with a dinner plan or evening activity, but my roommate MacKenzie had other plans for our house. On my way home, I receive a text from her saying that she found ants in the kitchen and that we need to be more "cleansly". Yeah, ok, I'll be sure to do that as soon as I look up the word cleansly in Webster ::deletes text without replying:: So, I walk in the house (completely ignoring the new sign that says to take off work boots before entering) and head towards the kitchen for a Gatorade. As soon as I walked through the doorway from the dining room to the kitchen all hell broke loose. MacKenzie was running around mass-cleaning every surface she could find mumbling about ants and crumbs and who knows what else. I didn't even have to say hey before she started in on me about how nasty our house is and how no one cares about cleaning anymore and how someone had hidden her broken bat from her without telling her about it. Being the non-confrontational person that I am, I decide to stand there and take one for the team. I figured she needed to rant about it then all would be right in the world for awhile until she found something to bitch at poor Katie about. So I endure the yelling and the passive aggressive comments for about 5 minutes and just when I think I'm off the hook she throws a curve ball at me. She starts crying. Woah. Panicking. Do I console her? Do I get her a tissue? Do I leave the room and let her work it out herself? I'm completely frozen in place wondering why she's crying about ants when Emma walks in the house. Hallelujah! The rest is all a blur until MacKenzie takes refuge in her room for about an hour. You'd think she would be calming down from all the hysteria, but I think she was fuming instead. People started congregating at our house to go swimming on the Brandywine River as an after-work-we're-all-tired-and-hot activity, which turned out to be one of the best ideas we had the entire summer. We got lost in a detour that took us 30 minutes out of the way. I got pulled down river by the rip tide around the dam, and Andrew and Victor had to swim down to rescue me. We explored up stream and all got covered in riverweed. Justin found a pair of broken sunglasses (the first of many pairs he collected as the summer went on) and wore them like a pirate eye patch the whole time. Emma scraped her butt on the rocks when she got sucked in by the rip tide. We seriously couldn't have planned a more hilarious trip. Afterwards, we decided to celebrate our outting with Mexican ice cream. Score! I sampled the new shredded cheese flavor, which had chunks in it, but wasn't impressed enough to pay $2.50 for a whole cup of it. Shredded cheese you might ask? I couldn't make that up even if I tried.

Best Conversation of the Day:
Jason: How come you're throwing away the stork cut-out?
MacKenzie: Because somebody hid my broken bat behind it without telling me.
::long, very awkward pause during which Katie and I are trying not to laugh::
Emma: Yeah...sorry about that...
::another long, very awkward pause during which Andrew is trying not to look guilty because he's the one that broke the bat::
Jason: Soooo...Can I have it?

Do You Make Tomato Soup With Tomatoes?

Today, I looked at myself in the mirror and asked the essential life question: How can you be from the south and have never tried chicken and dumplings? The sad part about this whole talking to myself in the mirror scenario is that I didn't have a good answer. My mom never made them for me? I didn't like the sound of a dumpling? Rubbish. No excuses. Katie's birthday to the rescue! She decided to make all the interns chicken and dumplings, mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, and fresh pie. I know what you're thinking...why is she making her own birthday dinner? I don't know. We all tried to tell her we'd take her out or make her something, but she's a stubborn Indianian (After a long debate, we decided that's what people from Indiana are called). But I digress. I'm pretty sure her grandmother's recipe didn't turn out quite the way she expected it to, but it was still edible. There was so much leftover that we ate chicken and dumplings for a week and still had to throw some of it away.

Plant of the Day: Musa spp.

Banana tree in the west conservatory.

I wanted to highlight bananas in this blog post because they are such fascinating plants. Despite the fact that we all refer to them as banana trees, they have no woody parts, and the 'stem' (called a pseudostem) is actually just the base of the huge leaf stalks. Each shoot of a banana has a terminal inflorescence, which means the shoot grows up, flowers, fruits, and dies. Somewhere in the middle of the growing and the dying, a new shoot (or pup) is produced from the mother leader stem. Once the leader stem produces its fruit, it must be cut back to the ground so the plant can use all its energy for growing the pup into the new leader stem. This cycle continues as long as the corm (swollen underground plant stem that serves as a storage organ) remains alive. Since the hybridized bananas we buy from the store are seedless and therefore sterile, throwing up pups is the plant's way of reproducing. Fertile bananas growing in the wild can have seeds up to the size and consistency of a golfball and reproduce through pollination.

Fireworks Duty

_]_
B U _ _ E R

I have found a foolproof way to win at Hangman. Poor Kail never stood a chance against this word.

Sidewalk chalk takes me back. Way back.

Note to self: When you have fireworks duty and are told to meet at Dogwood Allee at 9:00 PM, don't assume you can just walk into the gardens and ask where Dogwood Allee is. I asked an intern, 3 security guards, 2 VSAs, a facilities guy, and 2 gardeners. How is it that 9 different people, 6 of which had radios, had no idea where the huge line of dogwoods are in the gardens? Oi vey. After about 45 minutes, Victor came to the rescue, and we watched the fireworks together before they wisked me away to the back of the property to pick up caps. Within 5 minutes of meeting Brian from facilities, I knew his entire life story including the girl he met from Kentucky, his engaged 18 year old daughter, and the fact that he recently lost 50 lbs because he wanted to see his 4 year old son grow up. He seriously didn't slow down until he had to get out the Billy Goat, but even then he was trying to talk to me. The Billy Goat is loud and I have bad hearing as it is so I just nodded and smiled for the rest of the night. There's no telling what he said to me or how many times I nodded and smiled in the wrong place, but it's really just whatever. By midnight, we had all convened in the main fountain garden where I found out only guys and hardcore girls are allowed to work for fireworks duty because of the backpack blowers. Good thing I'm a weenie girl and was only given a trashcan and a cherry picker. We don't want to get overloaded or anything.

Siam Tulip

I Like Tuwtles

I'm interrupting the regular programming of Beth stories to bring you this special program of My Week in a Blog Nutshell. Each day and supervisor are different, and I love them all for very different reasons. All of them (except Andrew) have been at Longwood practically their whole career. I call them Longwood Lifers.

Mondays

I spend every Monday with Andrew Hemme in the children's gardens and estate houses. He is a recent graduate from Cornell University and was an intern at Longwood before being hired as a full-time gardener. My first day he had me sweeping for what seemed like forever. I don't want to be insubordinate (Andrew's favorite word) so I learned quickly to "sweep with a smile" and try to enjoy the instant gratification. Aside from sweeping and watering, he has had me espaliering the nectarines, planting new melons, tying the melons, eating figs, and pruning. He is also the only supervisor I have that knows how to take a break even when it's not 100 degrees outside.

Biggest Learning Curve: Distributing nematodes for 4.5 hours because we didn't know you could adjust the amount of water in the suspension. Instead of 12 gallons for every 5 million nematodes, we found that 3 gallons is more than enough. 12 gallons is a lot of water, and it took the nectarine house over a week to dry out enough to water it again. That's a long time!

Favorite Task: Picking and eating the fruit in the estate houses.

Least Favorite Task: Pinching the petunias.

Nectarine House

Tuesdays

Mary Allinson is my Tuesday supervisor. She is the section gardener for the West Conservatory and takes care of the garden path and the bonsai. With her, I'm never bored because we jump from task to task so often. Sometimes I'm pruning vines that give me rashes while other times I'm cleaning up the edges of the garden path where unassuming visitors tread on the plants. I like to refer to my Tuesdays as a hodge podge. Mary is always good about showing me new things she thinks I will interest me, and she loves to go for little field trips through the gardens for a change of scenery. Around the time pinching the bonsai mums is getting boring, here comes Mary with a plant she wants to find outside. Sure, I'll go help look for the Veronica out in the idea garden or the Celosia on the brick walk. Not a problem. 
Biggest Learning Curve: When Mary prunes something, she prunes it way back. Practically to the ground, in fact. It took me a few times to understand that the plants will recover and flush back out in a week or two. Now I'm a pruning machine!
Favorite Tasks: I absolutely love bonsaing the mums. She has trusted me to take care of the cascade, which is 3 years old (that's old as far as mum bonsai go). I've even learned how to wire them so they will grow in the form that she thinks is best.
Mary also includes me in her monthly plant auction down in research. They test plants for different parts of the garden to incorporate into their designs, and she takes most of them to the garden path for indoor testing. It's funny to hear them all talk about the plants and compare them to better varieties. The best, however, is when Jim Sutton tells the research coordinator "Just compost it and pretend like this never happened."
Least Favorite Task: Helping Ethel-Ann weed the orchids over at the nursery.

Bonsai

Wednesdays
Most Wednesdays, I spend with Marie (she's French-Canadian so I won't even try her last name) in the orchids. If Marie happens to be out, Lee Alyanakian supervises me for the day. It's tricky though because Lee is actually in charge of the orchids, but Marie is my main supervisor. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the orchid display in the conservatory gets changed out so there are always fresh blooms for people to see. It takes 9000 orchids to supply a 25 ft x 25 ft room, and it usually takes 2 hours to get everything looking the way it should. We go around to each of the greenhouses and choose the orchids that look the best, clean them up, and put labels in the pots for identification purposes. The best part is that I get to put my creative side into my work, which is always happy. After we change the display, I water everything, show the high schoolers how to water the 3000 cattleyas, and commence repotting whatever Marie thinks should be repotted. I've become an expert Phalaenopsis repotter over the past 2 months. 
Biggest Learning Curve: Hello! They're orchids. Everything was a learning curve.
Favorite Task: When we gave a brief seminar to the high school students, I taught them how to pot keikis from our Phalaenopsis. The best part was I got to pot one up for myself and take it home. I love a free plant!
Least Favorite Task: This one time, Lee had me crawling under the 3 ft benches pulling all the weeds. I know we have to stay on top of them so they don't get out of control, but it really isn't a pleasurable task. At least Lee had been down there doing the same thing the day before. I have a lot of respect for supervisors that take on some of the dirty jobs. 



Orchid Display

Thursdays

Joyce Rondinella! Definitely high on my list of favorite supervisors. She's the section gardener over the tropical terrace, the cascade garden, and the palm house. A typical day consists of soaking the palm house (and myself in turn) from the tunnel level, helping Linda water the hut, and cleaning up in the tropical terrace. Now that the high school students are with us full time, I have them water the palm house for me while I go around cleaning up brown leaves and such. I'm helping them build a lot of character. If it gets too hot, Joyce lets us go into the library to "learn something useful." She wants us to ask a lot of questions and learn as much as possible while we are here.  
Biggest Learning Curve: Joyce really values interns that ask a lot of questions so I have had to step up my game. Why do we irrigate the Rabbit's Foot Fern from above? What's the difference in a palm and a cycad? Does the compost tea really make your plants healthier? 
Favorite Task: Some of the staff at Longwood have satellite libraries at their desks, and Joyce's is one of my favorties. She has books about orchids, Roberto Burle Marx, palms, bromeliads, etc. I love sitting down on a hot day and just browsing through them. I've even made it a game every Thursday to learn something new from one of her books.
Least Favorite Task: It's a tie on this one. Either cleaning and watering the plants in the hut or showing the high schoolers how to water in the palm house. I can either be bored out of my mind for an hour or listen to girls complain about dirt on their clothes and bugs in their hair.


Encephalartos woodii: One of the rarest plants at Longwood

Fridays

"Friiiiday! Friiiiday! Gotta get down on Friiiiday. Everybody's looking forward to the weekend, weekend." ~Rebecca Black
Not only is it Friday, but I get to work in the lily pools with Tim Jennings. I get to start off the day by fertilizing the fern passage, which takes almost 2 hours, and watering the carniverous plant cases. Then, I head into the rose house for a heavy watering and hibiscus clean up. By about 10:30, it's time to head into the pools for the rest of the day! We clean up the dead leaves and spent blooms, reposition plants and lights, and answer a lot of questions. It's the most peaceful when there isn't a huge flush of people, and I can just enjoy the water.
Biggest Learning Curve: My biggest setback was learning how to interact with the public. I am asked a lot of questions about the water plants, and I have to be able to summon up my knowledge at a moment's notice. Luckily, Tim is usually around so I am able to watch how he entertains people's questions and mimick it. He's really taught me a lot about professionalism while working.
Favorite Task: One day, Tim was tired of being in the pools so he suggested we climb to the top of the conservatory to look at Longwood from up there. Score! He showed me how much easier it is to design from an aerial view because it helps you see proportions and placements. I was in heaven! Everything is so much better from up high.
Least Favorite Task: When I work with other people in the pools, I try to take one for the team and give them the pair of waders that I know don't leak. That leaves the leaky pairs for me. One time, I chose wrong and picked out a pair that puddles in the shoe. I may as well have just gone in without waders at all.

Me with the Water-Platters.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

FAQs

My first day working in the lily pools, Tim gave me 2 pieces of advice. 1. If you start to drown, just stand up because the water is only 30 inches deep and 2. When you put on those waders, you're an instant celebrity so be sure to smile for the camera and act like you know what you're talking about. Done and done. Here are some of my favorite questions and comments that we all get while we're working.
1. What are you doing?
2. Why did you pick that one?
3. Is that a plant? (It's really, really hard not to be a smart ass when I hear that one. We're a garden. Yes, that's a plant!)
4. Watch out for gators! (That one gets a sympathy chuckle every time because the person obviously thinks they're clever)
5. (While putting on my waders) Look at those sexy pants!
6. Can I take this home?
7. What do you do with the nectarines after you pick them?
8. Where's the bathroom?
9. Is there anywhere air conditioned in the conservatory?
10. You've got the best job in the whole garden!
11. Is the water warm?
12. Can I get in?
13. Will you spray my face with water? (Big no no. Usually, we're using fertilizer water anyways.)
14. What's wrong with my plant at home? The branches are falling off all of a sudden.
15. Why won't my plants bloom for me?
16. Ah! Mangos!
17. Can I take your picture?
18. Oh my gosh it's so hot out here! Aren't you boiling? I don't know how you handle it.
19. Why aren't the roses blooming?
20. This place is so beautiful! You all do such a great job! (My personal favorite)

Oh Captain! My Captain!

I'm on a boat!

When I came up to Pennsylvania, I promised myself that I would try new things and make the most of my experience in a new place. So far I have lived up to that promise, which is how I found myself canoeing down the Brandywine. Luckily, Kail is an Eagle Scout so he's basically a professional at all things outdoors and was kind enough to let me ride in the front of the boat. He had all the hard work steering in the back, and I was the captain of our mighty vessel. "And stroke! And stroke! Onward ho!" I really got into it. As we reached our first pseudo-rapid, I hear from somewhere behind me, "I look once more, just around the riverbend." It was Justin serenading himself (and everyone else around him) with the first song in Pocahontas. There's a blast from the past. How could I not join in for at least one chorus?
Side Note: If you skim your paddle along the top of the water in just the right direction, you can effectively splash your canoe partner. Kail and I got in somewhat of a water war there for a while. I don't want to toot my own horn, but toot toot. I won :D
We happened along a dinky rope swing about 1/3 of the way down the river, and I can now check that off my list of things to do before I die. About 2/3 of the way down, we had to get out of the river and drag our boat on land to avoid careening over the dam. Now, I am completely useless in situations like this so I designated Kail as the official boat tower. Good thing he had his swim trunks and his flippy floppies (And...T-Pain...) because I turned around just in time to see him fall overboard as he's trying to get out of the canoe. Graceful.
By the end of the adventure, I was doneyuns, but it was so much fun! I had no idea what I'd been missing these past 22 years of life. If there's one thing I've learned since moving up here it's to try anything once. You never know who you're going to meet or what you're going to experience if you don't.

They have the best milkshakes in the entire world. Pinky promise.

P.S. I was going to put Walt Whitman's "Oh Captain! My Captain!" poem on here, but then I actually read it. Did you know that it's about the captain of a ship dying? So not ideal for this situation.

Keep Your Eye on the Ball

Plant of the Day: Cattleya

Quick Facts

1. Orchids are not hard to grow as long as you know their specific requirements. The most important thing to know is where your orchid comes from when it occurs naturally in the wild. Cattleyas, for example, are native to South America so they need medium light and temperature. 
2. There are 9000+ orchids in the Longwood accession database, and over 3000 of them are Cattleyas. Let me tell you, watering that greenhouse takes a loooong time.
3. Only repot a Cattleya if it has outgrown its pot. This will occur about every 3-5 years. Make sure to save the pseudobulb with the new growth plus 3-5 other pseudobulbs since this is where they get most of their energy.
4. They grow sympodially through underground rhizomes.
5. They are one of the only fragrants orchids.
6. 3 petals, 3 sepals, 1 column...it's an orchid!

About a week ago, Mary approached me asking if I had ever had any mentoring experience in the past. Of course, this question came out of nowhere so I couldn't think of the year of high school I spent mentoring a freshman or the times I was a TA in college. Perfect! I shook my head slowly, and then Mary lowered the bomb. She told me that for the rest of my time here, I would be mentoring the high school students that come to Longwood from Saul High School. Oh great. High schoolers. Let's just hope this doesn't turn into a babysitting job.
To celebrate the arrival of all the summer interns, the education department held a luncheon for all of us in the Terra Cota Room below the Terrace Restaurant. We all had to stand up and introduce ourselves to the director and department heads. By this point, I'm so used to saying my name and where I'm from that I don't get nervous anymore. My favorite part of the day came after lunch when Lee (my Wednesday supervisor in the orchids) let me sit in on her Orchid Extravaganza meeting. It was so neat seeing all the behind-the-scenes stuff that goes into such a huge event. It doesn't even start until 2 weeks after the new year, but they have been planning it since last year. I'm almost glad I won't be here for it though because in that 2 week time period is when they rip out Christmas and put in OrchidEx. Crazy! All the construction and destruction is scheduled down to the minutes to make sure everything happens on time. While all of this planning is going on, I'm off in Beth Land wondering how they plan to make the orchid curtain. I didn't even know that was possible!

EPIC STORY TIME

Once upon a time, there was a lovely intern named Beth. She found herself in the Land of the North where she made loads of new friends, learned tons in the conservatory, and tried new things pretty much daily. One night, Stephen made Katie, Andrew, and Beth a champion meal of hot dogs, mac and cheese, green beans, baked beans, and chili. They were all so full afterwards that they decided to throw the softball back and forth because a run through the gardens seemed like a bad idea. This was a learning experience for Beth! As a child, her dad had tried to teach her how to throw off the correct foot and catch the ball, but Beth had never really picked up the proper techniques. "Well," Andrew told Beth, "tonight is the night you learn how to throw like a guy instead of a girl." Just what she'd always wanted. So Andrew proceeded to reiterate everything her dad had told her all those years ago, but this time something clicked in Beth's mind. Her first few throws were awkward, but she quickly got the hang of it. After awhile, Andrew tried teaching her how to catch the ball with her glove upside, which didn't end well. He threw the ball, Beth missed the ball, and Beth's upper thigh caught the ball. Despite the minor stinging sensation, they continued their game and even picked up another player. Sam and Beth were standing next to each other taking turns catching the ball. As with most things, Beth lost interest after awhile and wasn't paying close attention to what was going on around her. Andrew threw the ball one last time, and Sam reached for it. Beth took that to mean he was planning on catching it for her since it had technically been thrown in her direction. How wrong she was. The ball deflected right out of Sam's glove into Beth's left eye. A few drops of blood and tears later, she walked herself home to a sympathetic MacKenzie and Emma who got her an ice pack. Later on, Sam came over and gave Beth a hug, which helped. Who doesn't love getting attention from a cute guy? In the end, Sam was so traumatized by what had happened that he wouldn't play softball with Beth for 3 weeks. And they all lived happily ever after. The end.

This is what I awoke to the next day. The three scratch marks are where the laces hit my cheek. 

This tale was based on a true story. No character names have been changed because no one's identity needs protecting.