Hi everyone! You may be asking yourself, “What is Red Lion
Row, and why are you writing from it?” It’s where I live! Red Lion Row is the
name of the street where all of the Longwood Gardens student housing is located.
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| My house on Red Lion Row |
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| Red Lion Row, 2004 |
Red Lion Row was first established by the creator of
Longwood Gardens, Pierre DuPont, as a safe and comfortable place for his
employees to live in the early 1900s. Today, these houses are still available
for staff and students working at Longwood. I am very lucky to call Red Lion
Row my home for the summer while I work as a rotational horticulture intern in
the gardens.
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| Red Lion Row, 1946 |
So why am I writing from the Row? The honest answer is
because I have to, or I won’t get credit for this internship from the
Horticulture Deptartment. But that’s not the only reason! I want to make this
blog a fun and educational way for everyone to see what I’m up to this summer.
Don’t worry, I’ll try to include as many pretty pictures as I can. You might
even learn some horticulture along the way.
This first week is entirely orientation with only two half-workdays
thrown in, so there isn’t very much I can say right now. As a rotational
intern, I will spend a month each in three different areas at Longwood. I’m beginning
my first rotation at the garden in the production sector, learning from the
greenhouse growers as they prepare plants for all of the different display
gardens. Although they work behind the scenes, they are incredibly important for
supplying the exquisite plants visitors admire both in the conservatory and the
outdoor display gardens.
I worked a half shift today, and we had a lot of fun mixing
potting media using Longwood’s secret recipe (hint: it includes peat, pine
bark, lime, perlite, vermiculite, soil, and beneficial microbes). The soil isn’t
mixed by hand; Longwood has an enormous machine which feeds all the different
ingredients onto a small conveyor belt, mixing them together before releasing
the soil into a large bin. I’m excited to finally start working full time next
week!
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| This is the machine we used to mix the potting media. |
My second rotation will begin in about a month, when I will
switch over to conservatory management. After spending time among the glorious tropical
plants for about 3 weeks, I will begin my final rotation assisting with the
many outdoor display gardens. By the end of the summer, I will hopefully know
the 350+ public acres of Longwood Gardens like the back of my hand. I say ‘public
acres’ because Longwood actually controls 1,077 acres of land, the rest of
which is behind the scenes and not open to the public. This includes the
production area, the nursery, housing, naturalized land, and a field of solar
panels. Yes, you heard that right. On particularly sunny winter days, Longwood
can go off the grid.
I will try to update this blog weekly at the very least,
with extra topic posts scattered in between. (Get excited for my post on the
largest water lilies in the world, a plant Longwood is famous for, which are appropriately
named Victoria amazonica).
I can’t wait to share my summer with you!
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| Longwood Interns of summer '14! |
