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.

Winterthur

A little tidbit of information brought to you by design intern Stephen Dorn while sitting on a bench outside the visitor center of Winterthur Gardens:

You know something? The number one pastime of humans is watching other humans. Don't deny it. Check out that family over there, for example. They're watching us watch them.

Song of the Moment: Super Bass by Nicki Minaj
YouTube Videos of the Time: Between Two Ferns with Zach Galianfinakis

Let's play pretend...

H. F. du Pont's mansion, and where our story begins. 

The year is 1928, and we have been invited to visit Henry Francis du Pont for dinner at his recently inherited 982 acre estate Winterthur. We arrive in the late afternoon just in time for a nice round of golf on the back side of the property before convening in the dining wing for a light dinner. Then, on to tea on the veranda and a tour around the gardens. There are a few azaleas to our left, a Japanese maple to our right, and a zillion trees somewhere in the middle. As we walk through the children's garden complete with fairy house and misting mushrooms, I can't help but notice the lack of color. We've walked almost the entire property, and I haven't seen much variation in the color palette. How unusual. Since we're playing pretend, I'm bold enough to ask one of the wealthiest men of his time, "Mr. du Pont, where is all the color in your garden?" "Ah, my dear girl, you noticed! You see, I prefer a more wooded feel so I use trees, shrubs, and groundcovers that allow me to attain that." "I see. It's green as far as the eye can see though." "Right you are. And anyways, isn't green a color?" "Touche, Mr. du Pont. Well played."

Playing with the fish.

When we arrived at Winterthur, we were just in time for the free tram tour around the gardens. The guide was pretty knowledgable, and the whole experience reminded me of Dollywood. Hop on at the round about tram stop, learn from the guide, and get off at the main attraction. In this case, the main attraction was H. F. du Pont's 9 story house. Woah back up! 9 stories?! Excuse me while I reel my jaw back in. There was a 1 hour tour through part of the house, but we opted to just walk around the gardens. I mean...we are horticulture interns after all. We spent 2 hours walking around so I will hit the highlights of the tour.
1. The 100 year old Japanese Maple.
2. The people-sized bird's nest you could walk in.
3. When we got inside the canopy of a huge tree and climbed it.
4. The 2 rooms full of Campbell Soup tureens. My personal favorites were the boar's head and the Buddha. Classy.

Monkeying around.

A Dinner for Champions

That's not even 1/3 of the Longwood Welcome Line.

My commitment to this internship reached a whole new level   today. I've been receiving at least 3 emails a day for the past week about the Longwood Welcome Line the night everyone from APGA comes to the gardens. The recipients list included every single Longwood employee (375), intern (18), student (20), seasonal (?), and volunteer (750+). That's a lot of people! Somewhere in the fine print that I  conveniently skimmed over in all the emails, there was mention of matching t-shirts, pom poms, and ponchos just in case the weather didn't cooperate. I'll do just about anything for a free t-shirt (plus attendance was mandatory) so I signed in right after work and found my team leader Courtney something. You know it's serious when you're assigned a team leader. After a wait that seemed like forever, we followed Courtney out to the very entrance of Longwood to man our post. Within 10 seconds of getting to our post, a bus pulls into the driveway so we all start waving and yelling. Their faces were priceless! In the world of emoticons, we had a lot of :D and :O. One part of the email that I did read every time it came to my inbox was the part that said we could leave early if all the buses arrived before 6:00 PM. Since the first bus arrived so quickly, I figured they would continue coming steadily for a while. Boy was I ever wrong. The next bus didn't make an appearance for over an hour. In the mean time, it started to storm, Courtney got even peppier (she was well-chosen as a "cheer captain"), and the director of the gardens (Paul Redman, known in this blog as PBR) took his place at the head of the receiving line. So here I am, dying of hunger in my white t-shirt after a long week of work, when it starts to rain...no not rain...pour. It starts to pour. Thank you, Chuck Ross, for having enough foresight to order us all clear ponchos. Why clear? So the wonderful people from APGA could still read our matching t-shirts, of course. You know the cool thing about ponchos? Yeah I don't either. If you can't tell by this point, I was getting cranky. Fast. Every time a car would drive through the gates, PBR would yell, "We've got another live one!" I'm pretty sure he'd been drinking. Then, Courtney would lead my group in a rousing round of show-them-how-excited-we-can-act, while people on the buses took our picture. The whole thing was definitely an experience. The rain stopped, and the sun came out about 5:30. That made for an interesting 5 minutes where we were all trying to decide whether or not to take off our ponchos. My favorite car to come through was the president of the board because his wife was hanging out of the sunroof waving back to all of us. She was eating it up. Finally, the last bus rolled through the gate, and PBR dismissed us to get ready for dinner.

You haven't heard Don't Stop Believin' until you've heard it from 5 harpists

dinner!

Some of the interns at the fancy dinner.

Appetizer: 3 half grapes, edible flowers, 1 toasted cashew, and watermelon sauce. Yum?

Main Course: 3 beef tenderloin slices, 1 stuffed mushroom, lobster salad, and some weeds. Yum!

Dessert was the most amazing piece of guava cheesecake I've ever put in my mouth followed by a live marching/rock band and fireworks set to the ABBA soundtrack. After 2 weeks of intensity getting ready for this, Longwood really put on a show. They definitely know how to treat their guests and employees.

APGA

A nickel's worth of free advice: Never say no to a group activity that you don't have to plan or pay for.

I learned this tidbit of information my sophomore year of college when I became the member of a large group that regularly liked to hang out together. It's also how I found myself attending the Wednesday sessions of the APGA Conference with Katie and Luke. Until Katie said, " Luke and I are going on Wednesday, would you like me to sign you up for that day, too?" I hadn't really even considered going. I didn't want to miss this adventure to Philadelphia...sign me up!
After the van fiasco of not having keys and finding out it leaks unknown fluids, we made it to the Loews Hotel. MacKenzie talked me into going to the education session in the morning, which was so boring and irrelevant that I won't even bother trying to relay the details. The 2 buzz words I picked up were Fairchild Challenge and Phipps Conservatory.

Emma, me, and MacKenzie after a thrilling lecture

What do you think of when you hear the words box lunch? If you're like me, it goes a little something like this..."Oh great not another plain ham sandwich, mushy apple, and crunchy cookie." I swear they haven't changed the make-up of a box lunch since I took elementary school field trips. I was pleasantly surprised, however, that the caterers for APGA knew how to feed a group of hungry horticulturalists. They had 3 different kinds of wraps, pasta, a fresh apple, baked Lays, an Otis Spunkmeyer cookie, soda, and all the condiments you could ask for. It was heaven in a take-along box. (Obviously I was impressed since I decided to blog about how amazing the lunch was)

A group of interns eating their box lunch

The afternoon horticulture session sounded promising so most of the group headed that direction after lunch. As a landscape design graduate, I can always go for a good talk on Jens Jensen. The lady that spoke is a professor at Purdue, but I'm not so sure how prepared she was for her talk. She kept saying she didn't have enough time so she rushed through her PowerPoint. Call me crazy, but I think her biggest problem was that she tried to cram an hour long college lecture into 15 minutes. It just can't be done. Now the main event and basically the only reason I didn't skip the afternoon session to explore Philadelphia. Underwater-themed gardening at Seaworld Orlando. Shamu! Can you imagine having to compete with Shamu for people's attention? What a task! They knew this garden needed to be a place where people could go for a quick break between shows, rides, etc. When designing and implementing a design, there are bound to be a few obstacles that must be dealt with.
Obstacle 1: When a team of 3 non-plant people designs your garden.
This is so not ideal in any situation. When faced with this, however, the team of horticulturalists at Seaworld did the best they could with what they were given. The design was amateur, but there were some neat ideas they knew they could focus on.
Obstacle 2: When that same team of people gives you internet print-off pictures of the plants they want. Without plant names.
Also not the greatest situation. The install team was able to find great plants they knew would work in the Florida heat and that had the certain look they were trying to achieve. It's hard to find land plants that look like kelp by the way.
Obstacle 3: When you have an underwater-themed landscape made of hazardous plant material.
Both large and small cacti were used to give the look of coral, which means the state of Florida requires fencing to ensure public safety. I say let them learn their lesson the hard way but it's really just whatever. Luckily, sand fencing is up to code for this situation and doesn't detract from the overall look.
Obstacle 4: When you have a large barn as your backdrop instead of the natural landscape of the area. 
When Seaworld first opened, it was owned by Anheuser Busch. The barn where visitors could go for free beer is still there even though the whole beer thing disappeared when Anheuser sold Seaworld. Something about nostalgia was mentioned so they decided to keep the barn. That's an interesting transition. From the shore, to coral, to kelp, to an 1800s style barn? There is no overcoming something like that so the horticulturalists just had to deal with it.
Obstacle 5: When someone wants to add pink flamingos to your underwater-themed garden.
Just let them. It's not worth the fight. 

Coral Garden: It's amazing that you can use the look of one plant to imitate another

Coral Garden: They even added fake fish!

Kelp Garden: See the barn in the background?

Shore Garden: Notice the "pink" flamingos

Shore Garden

Final Countdown

It was definitely crunch time here at Longwood over the past 5 days preparing for 400-500 visitors from the APGA Conference. They arrive Friday afternoon between 4:30 and 6 via coach bus, and we are greeting them all in the APGA Receiving Line. More on that in a later post.
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Monday: APGA countdown - 4 days
Today, Andrew asked if I could come into work at 5 AM. That's ridiculously early, but it's not like I can say no. So I said yes with a smile :D You know those horror movies where the unsuspecting girl walks through the misty woods and all you can think is, "No! Don't go in there! That's where the bad things are!"? That's exactly how I felt at 4:50 AM walking through the woods to the potting shed. "I should turn back and drive. What was that sound? Oh my gosh I'm going to get kidnapped, and no one will ever know." It's funny how dramatic the mind can be when it's on high alert. There are definitely good and bad things about going into work that early. The good thing is that I got off at 1:30 instead of 3:30. The bad thing is that it's 6.5 hours until lunch break instead of the usual 4.5.

Trachelospermum jasminoides - Star Jasmine 

Andrew has a Star Jasmine growing as a blanketing vine up the wall in the bamboo forest of the Children's Garden. In late spring and early summer, the blooms look like a massive tapestry of white and green. It really is quite impressive. After all the blooms are spent, however, they leave behind brown carcasses and unsightly seed pods (not to mention the cottony scale damage on much of the foliage). It was my job to scale a 15 foot ladder to prune out all the brown patches, spent blooms, and seed pods. Other than that, he had me doing super tedious work to get ready for APGA.
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Tuesday: APGA countdown - 3 days
This morning while I was deadheading and pruning more Star Jasmine in the Children's Garden, I got to thinking about how much I wish I could work with my iPod to make the time go faster. Out of nowhere I hear over the PA system "You are the Dancing Queen. Young and sweet. Only 17." Well, it's not Zac Brown Band, but I'll take it. After about 5 more ABBA songs, I felt like I was part of the Mamma Mia cast and hoped Meryl Streep would come prancing down the aisle with Pierce Brosnan at her side. Thank you, Longwood, for testing the fireworks music this morning! It really did perk us all up.

Agonis flexuosa - Willow Myrtle

The highlight of my day today was pruning the Willow Myrtle in the passageway of the Children's Garden. The whole trick is to stagger your cuts with no nubs or stubs to make it look natural. I'm finally getting the hang of taming plants without making them look awkward in the process. I always feel a sense of instant gratification as I step back to examine my handiwork. Also, the neat thing about the Willow Myrtle is that the foliage has a mixture of eucalyptus and mint aromas when the leaves are crushed. I smelled like a million bucks for at least an hour after completing that assignment.

Ardisia japonica - Marlberry

For years now, my father and grandfather have been telling me that the tasks we are given and the situations we face in life make us stronger. We like to refer to this as "building character" (I've mentioned it a few times in past blogs).  Well, Daddy and Papa, you will be proud to know that Victor and I did just that this afternoon. The Marlberry in the Fruit House has developed a thrips problem, which has caused about 1/4 of the foliage to turn a sickly brown-silver color. That's unacceptable for the current APGA standards so it was our task to sit down with a bucket and pick out every single brown leaf we could find. 3.5 hours later, Victor and I composted 15 gallons worth of brown leaves in the soil shed. I have come to grips with the fact that not a single APGA guest will walk into the Fruit House and say, "Wow! That Marlberry doesn't have a single brown leaf on it. I wonder how they keep it looking so perky at this time of year." They also, however, won't say, "Wow! That Marlberry looks really sickly. Maybe they should consider a species better suited for this kind of growing condition." We must look on the bright side of things. ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday: APGA countdown - 1 day
My morning consisted of detailed grooming with Linda in the Tropical Terrace. I was climbing behind palm trees, crouching in the Aglaonema, picking out more brown leaves, and skimming floaties out of the stagnant pond. I got tickled when I remembered the line from Andy Griffith where Opie tells his Pa, "Johnny Paul says if you put a horse hair in stagnation water, it'll turn into a snake." Where's a horse hair when you need one?

Joyce taught me a little bit about Bromeliads today so I've decided to test my memory skills.
1. There are 3000 classified species of Bromeliads in the world. Many of them are able to crossbreed, which leads to new hybrids and the discovery of new species.
2. Pineapples are Bromeliads.
3. Some Bromeliads are stoloniferous - a long horizontal stem that grows along the surface of the soil. Others are rhizomatic - a thick horizontal underground stem of plants.
4. When cultivated for food, they are a good source of fiber and vitamins. They can also be harvested as the meat tenderizer bromelain.
5. Homeowners are not advised to water their Bromeliads from the top because the cups catch excess water. The leaves slowly rot away if the water sits in the cups for too long, which isn't ideal for healthy plant situations.
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Friday: It's go time!
All we did today were some last minute touch ups before APGA and the weekend. They were all so incredibly insignificant in the grand scheme of life that even an Andy Griffith quote wouldn't help.

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A Note to the Readers: With all the APGA preparations, this was not the most exciting week of work. Most of what we did was tedious detail work to make everything look as close to perfect as possible. I tried to make this entry more interesting by picking out the highlights of the week. Thanks for reading!