Pajamas

Corn ice cream. Try it. Love it. Pass it on.

Last night, Katie mentioned a quaint, little place called Buckley's Tavern in Centerville, DE where they serve brunch 1/2 off on Sundays if you wear your pajamas. Since it's not socially acceptable to wear pajamas in public on a regular basis, Stephen and I jumped on her offer to go there before church at 11. 9 AM rolled around Sunday morning, and we headed out to Buckley's in our pajamas. Mine were especially adorable if I do say so myself. Note to self: never go somewhere new without checking the opening and closing times first because Buckley's doesn't open until 10. So here we are awkwardly standing in the doorway of Buckley's in our pajamas (with all the waiters staring at us) trying to figure out what to do. Stephen pulls up Waffle House on the GPS, but it's 15 miles away. Rats. The IHOP in Wilmington was only 9 miles away, which in comparison to 15 miles seemed like a great idea. Hindsight is always 20/20. Did you know it's possible to be underdressed at an IHOP? I sure didn't. I felt judgemental eyes give us the up-down as we entered the restaurant and were told by the hostess that it would be "awhile" before we could be seated. "Awhile" later, which turned out to be roughly 20 minutes, we sat down by the bathrooms, and I tried French Toast for the first time. Pancakes are definitely the way to go at IHOP (imagine that). In the end, we missed church, but we got a nice tour of the grey part (not nice but not the ghetto either) of Wilmington in our pajamas.

Fireworks Setting

Travels of the Weekend: King of Prussia Mall, King of Prussia, PA
There is literally a store in this mall for every shopper. From Forever 21 for the lightweights like me to Nordstrom for professionals like the Kardashians. We wanted to hit up the food court first because none of us had eaten lunch. After stopping at 2 maps to find our way, we made it. It wasn't especially impressive, but the Asian food was good so that's really all that matters. The girls wandered into Sephora after lunch and proceeded to giggle over lipgloss for almost an hour. I spritzed myself with Poison by Dior (bad choice) before heading out to find the boys at Banana Republic. We never made it there because we got lost in the world of Bath and Body Works. We found the boys an hour later and all got smoothies to top off the successful shopping trip. All-in-all, I can definitely see why people rave about this mall so much. It has 2 different buildings and 2 floors in each building. Crazy! West Town sure doesn't have that.

Tickets for the fireworks show are $31 per person for the general public and $10 per person for Longwood staff. For MacKenzie, Jason, and I, however, the fireworks show was free thanks to a source who chooses to remain nameless. We had 31 minutes to kill once we found a seat so I proceeded to people watch. Fortunately, the best ones were right in front of us. First, a Middle Eastern couple parks their wide load stroller right in front of us, which caused a chain reaction of us having to scoot over. The new couple we sat behind was eating fancy cheese and crackers out of a cardboard box. They even had a topping that vaguely resembled caviar paste. Then, the real fun began. The fireworks absolutely blew me away. Boom's Day can't even compare except when they do Jaws and the waterfall. These were bigger, louder, brighter, more colorful, and had a better soundtrack. The show lasted exactly 39 minutes with a 3 minute intro and a finale that left us all wanting more. We walked back to the row in the pitch black and saw the coolest display of lightning bugs. They must have gotten excited by the fireworks because there were thousands of them in the trees and bushes. It was a spectacular way to end the evening.

Doesn't this look like a flower?

Fun Fact: Fireflies in Spain are an orange color, and South African fireflies are green.

Best picture of the night.

What's That Smell?

Please listen to song while reading blog

The Palm House: 
In the Palm House, the sound of rushing water and unusual palms under-planted with lush groundcover plants create a tropical feeling throughout the year. Cultivated for centuries, palms are used for clothing, shelter, fuel and food. Cycads, which are also in the Palm House, are an ancient, non-flowering group of plants closely related to pines and other conifers. Prolific in the age of the dinosaurs, cycads today are considered living fossils.
Noteworthy plants: Three-Cornered Palm (Dypsis decaryi), Queen-Palm (Cycas circinalis), Wild Date Palm (Phoenix sylvestris), Bottle Palm (Hyophorbe lagenicaulis), Clustered Fishtail Palm (Caryota mitis)

As soon as I crossed the threshold from the tunnel into the Palm House, I entered an alternate reality. I felt like I was Ursula from George of the Jungle, and a butt-flap wearing Brendan Fraser would swing down on a vine to whisk me away to Ape Mountain. Alas, no Brendan Fraser appeared as I dragged the hose (ew is that a spider?) out of the tunnel to "give everything a good drink". I'm sure there's a trick to dragging the 300 foot hose around without shmushing plants (oh my gosh I hope that frog doesn't jump on my head) or tripping myself, but I haven't figured it out yet. Since the Palms are directly planted into the ground instead of into soil on top of concrete, their root systems are incredibly extensive and must be watered thoroughly. This means that by the end, there are standing puddles both on the ground and in my shoes. I do find it mildly satisfying to be covered in mud as I put away the hose because I feel like I actually did my job well. You can't be a horticulturalist without getting dirty.
"Oh my goodness gracious! What on earth is that smell?!?!" is all I could think as I watered a particularly large cycad. It seriously smelled like someone let their dog do its business in the water supply. It got stronger and stronger then suddenly...nothing. Not even a hint of sewage in the air. You know what it was? Mushroom compost. Kennett Square is the mushroom capital of the world, and the farmers were preparing their crop with some fresh compost.

What I Learned Today:

1. Zero turn radius lawnmowers are not for the inexperienced. I almost took out a PG's precious garden plot before a low-hanging branch almost took out my precious face. Steering wheels I can handle...awkward lap bars I cannot handle.
2. No matter how long you live in Kennett Square, you will never get used to the smell of mushroom compost.
3. Row clean-up is just as character building as it sounds. If you can't mulch or drive the Kubota, you are sentenced to weeding duty in everyone's flowerbeds or picking up rocks in the parking lot.
4. I am not a boisterous person.

 

 

 

The main cycad in the Palm House

The Palm House from the viewing deck

Don't Look Down

Bougainvillea

            

 Beautiful picture right? It grows as a vine or shrub, withstands dry conditions, and is deer resistant. What's not to love?! I'll show you.

 

Feel free to say "ouch" because those are my forearms after 4 hours of pruning the Bougainvillea in the rose house. When I got to work that morning, Tim said he had a special project for me. Score! Third day on the job, and they're already trusting me with special projects! We go get an extension ladder before heading into the rose house. Now, at this point, I have no idea what I'm getting myself into because no one has actually told me anything, which later I found out why. Tim pulls a hanging basket-type contraption along the cat-walk (25 feet in the air), and I think "Haha joke! Who's getting in that thing?" Yep, you guessed it...me. As I awkwardly scaled the ladder, Tim yelled up, "Be careful when you jump on. It swings. Oh and there's a bolt at the top so don't hit your head on it." Great. Don't fall, don't hit my head on the bolt, and don't say those potty words going through my head. What seemed like a lifetime later, I checked all 3 items off my list and began dragging myself down the cat-walk. 4 hours later, I'm still hanging in the basket pruning because I was afraid to get down. Jumping from the swinging basket to the top of a ladder wasn't the ideal situation I had visualized in my mind. In the end, I hit my head on the bolt every time I had to move the swinging basket, there was a cut up my nose from one of the thorns ricocheting off my pruners, and my arms resembled something from a horror movie. On a positive note, I lived to tell the tale (yes, I did have to jump from the swinging basket to the top of the ladder), and I even built character in the process. 

Beth: 1

Bougainvillea: 0

Medieval Serfdom

es·pal·ier  
n.

1. A tree or shrub that is trained to grow in a flat plane against a wall, often in a symmetrical pattern.

2. A trellis or other framework on which an espalier is grown.



TIME WARP
Today's saga begins in 17th century France. The serfs are laboring away in the castle's courtyard training fruit trees to grow 2-dimensionally along a trellis or frame. In the midst of burning people at the stake for heresy, espaliering became popular among the upper class because it lengthened the growing season and saved space. They found that if you trained the branches vertically while they're young then horizontally as they age, the amount of fruit produced increases substantially. Allowing the branches to grow horizontally also created a more formal look and interfered less with the open space in the courtyard. Nowadays, people utilize it in their owns yards to hide unsightly walls or to enhance the beauty of a small space. It is considered an art that takes many years of patience and hard work, but the results are well-worth it.
That is how I found myself on an 8 foot ladder all day tying back stray branches from the nectarine trees in the fruit house. I'm sure most people would find the task dull, but I really took to it because it was so relaxing. The best part was stepping back after completing an entire tree to survey the results. There are many different types of espalier, but the trees at Longwood are in what's called a fan shape. This means there is a central stem with many branches coming from it at a 45 degree angle. The main goal is to train each branch so it covers a hole and creates one mass of foliage.
Working in the fruit house has it's perks. Andrew let me try one of the figs he harvested, and when I accidentally knocked a nectarine to the ground, he took out his knife so we could split it. I've finally found someone that knows how to take a decent break!

Rum and Coke Float

I spent the morning recuperating from my first day of work. After a while, I got really bored and decided to utilize the advice my dad gave me. "Don't just sit around waiting for something to happen. Run the roads. Do your own thing." I made plans to visit Hagley Museum and Library because it is relatively close to the row and is free with my Longwood ID. I like free so my Michelins hit the road. After a few (il)legal u-turns followed by a short stint driving down a one way street going the wrong way, I made it to Hagley along the Brandywine River. Since I'm not much for reading pamphlets (especially ones with numbered stops on them), I decided to do some research on the internet of what to expect from my experience at Hagley, which is where the du Pont story begins. In 1802, E.I. du Pont founded his gunpowder works on 235 acres of land complete with mills, a worker's community, and the family home. To find out more about Hagley and how it got the name Hagley, click on the link above.
The Brandywine River is such a beautiful setting for taking a walk. It's so relaxing, and I really enjoyed seeing all the different kinds plants. It is a bit too late for the wildflowers so I had to rely on the Tiger Lilies along the banks for some color. Along the way, I stopped at some of the mill ruins, but they were creepy. Needless to say, I didn't linger long. I tend to go into a fun place I refer to as Beth Land when I take walks, which is where I was when a beaver came running across the path not 5 feet in front of me. I jumped clear out of my skin, but oddly enough I think I scared it more than it scared me. Thanks to Andrew Temple, who linked an article about crazy beavers to me, I knew not to get too close. Rabies wouldn't be ideal this far away from home and UT Hospital even if it would make for an epic life story.

 

Top 5 YouTube Videos of the Night

1. Jack Sparrow
2. Kittens Inspired by Kittens
3. Talking Dog
4. Honey Badgers
5. Maximum Protein Bar

Game of the Night: Kings
Purple...Green...Orange...No wait, this is the rhyming round not the colors round. Nothing rhymes with purple! 

Wading with the Lilies

What I Learned Today:

1. Longwood uses many different fertilizer formulas, but the conservatory uses the formula the production greenhouse is using at the time.
2. The roses are forced into full bloom from Thanksgiving to April. Then, they are cut back to 3 feet right before summer begins. We cut them back early this year to give them a break from growing. 
3. Since Philadelphia is hosting the APGA Conference at the end of June, Longwood has to be at the top of their game. A group of 500 APGA members are taking a behind the scenes tour of the entire property including The Row, the gardens, the production greenhouses, the conservatory, etc. Everyone is in crunch mode! 
4. In Spain and South Africa, there is milk that doesn't have to be refrigerated. From what I'm told it tastes "box-y" and isn't very appetizing. Milk from a box? Who knew?

First day of work! First day of work!
I was a bundle of nerves and excitement as I trekked 10 minutes through the woods to the potting shed where I met my Friday boss Tim. He took me back to the fern house and gave me a brief tour before putting me to work watering everything. The hoses come out of the floor! That's a total luxury for me coming from the UT Gardens where their hoses are sun-baked, have holes right where the rubber meets the connector, and soak you from head to toe. I've been warned that Longwood is more like Fantasy Land than the Real World so I'm enjoying all the perks while they last.
The highlight of the day was working in the Lily pools. I'm pretty sure they only had one wader size: XXL. They definitely didn't make me look like a model for Bass Pro, but they didn't leak either so who's complaining? I followed Tony around the pools learning how to prune the yellow leaves and the spent flowers. The visitors eat it up when there's someone in the pools, and the most FAQ is "Can I take a flower home?" No.

Summer was nice enough to organize a mingle session between the PGs and the new interns. She ordered a ton of pizza and Klondike Bars. Then, she projected Wayne's World on the side of one of the houses. The movie was a throwback to Mike Myers' 90s phase, but I can't say I hated it. 

 

"Pardon me. Do you have any Grey Poupon?"

Spaghetti Western

Riddle Time:

Q: What do you get when you add 1 pot of spaghetti, 19 interns, and 64?

A: A party!

There's no better way to get a group of people together than to provide them with plenty of food. It's historically proven. Jesus broke bread with his disciples, the Native Americans and the Europeans had a harvest festival, it's how parents get the their children home from college on the weekends, and Paula Deen has made a living off it on Food Network. I think that's why when MacKenzie mentioned a spaghetti potluck at 64, mass chaos ensued around the sign up sheet. We made spaghetti and the other houses provided everything from spaghetti bread (garlic and herb bread made from scratch) to neapolitan sherbet. Victor even shared the cheese he brought with him from Spain. I'm still not sure how he managed to sneak through customs without it being confiscated. Since most of us get up at the crack of dawn to be at work on time, the party broke up early. I found myself laying in bed by 9:45 wondering if I'd ever get comfortable on the styrofoam block some people refer to as a mattress. A mixture of nerves and excitement about my first day of work kept my brain going a mile a minute until I remembered one of my favorite Bible verses:
"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself."  Matthew 6:34
Off to La-La Land I went!

Plant Community

5 Life Lessons

1. Safety, Safety, Safety - "It is when you begin to rush that you become unsafe."
2. Heat builds character.
3. Being here is like being in a 24/7 job interview. There is always someone watching, evaluating, and reporting your performance both at work and on The Row.
4. Lyme disease is prevalent in Pennsylvania so don't be shy about checking each other for ticks.
5. You get out of each day what you put into it. If you put nothing, you receive nothing. If you are engaging and willing to learn, you receive everything.

2 days of orientation here at Longwood is too much and not enough all at the same time. We met so many people, shook so many hands, and learned so much information in that short period of time.  I've never said, "Hi, my name is Beth, I'm from Knoxville, I'm interning in indoor display, and I will be here until the end of August," so many times in all my life. Everyone was super nice, however, and seemed genuinely interested in getting to know all the new interns. Even the group that got here 3 weeks before the rest of us couldn't wait to include us all in the community. Living on "The Row" is a whole new experience. It gives the term 'plant community' a whole new meaning. In this case, I live in a community of 40 other plant lovers who want to learn as much as possible about plants. How they grow, where they grow, how we can use them to benefit ourselves and others, and even how to kill them (although that's saved mostly for Poison Ivy). We've also got a wide range of people from around the world. I've met people from Alabama, Indiana, New Hampshire, South Africa, Vermont, Spain, and New Mexico. And that isn't even all of them!

1st time away from home, and I admit I called my mom sobbing within 3 hours of moving in. Pity Party party of 1? She helped me realize that it's okay to be sad and miss home as long as I remember that being here is an incredible opportunity. Out of hundreds of applications, they chose my 17 fellow interns and me to experience all that Longwood has to offer. Things like this don't come around every day. So here I am, sitting on my front porch, enjoying the student gardens in front of me and the sounds of nature all around me, thanking God (and the wonderful people at Longwood) for offering me this opportunity. Scar from the Lion King said it best: "Even you can't be caught unawares so prepare for a chance of a lifetime."

Longwood Website