What does an intern actually do?

So a couple of people have been wondering what kind of stuff I do on a daily basis, and to be fair, I guess I have been kind of evasive as to the kind of stuff that I do at Scott. The short answer is, anything and everything that needs done. Some things to know: There is a good-sized staff dedicated to the maintenance of grounds at the Scott Arboretum. This includes mostly gardeners and special coordinators, plus people in charge of different aspects of grounds maintenance that I don't know anything about (like athletic field maintenance). There is also a group of people known as the council, which figure out things like funding and special events. All in all, that is probably close to thirty people right there.
 

My job is mostly to do whatever anyone tells me, although as of right now this mostly means following the curatorial intern, Sam, around all day and help him do whatever he's supposed to do. He is also in charge of the student workers. I think there are four of them, and they each work about seven hours a week.

 

Also, there are a lot of volunteers, or arboretum assistants. They are, in many ways, the lifeblood of the arboretum. They show up daily, and do all sorts of projects ranging from weeding and planting, to running errands around the campus, to helping with special celebrations and events. Most of them are retirees, and they are fascinating, hardworking, and welcoming; the sense of community they help to foster within the workings of the arboretum is one of my favorite things about the Scott. So sometimes I get to help them with projects.

 

On the whole, I spend most of my time watering, weeding, mulching/edging, moving/digging/potting plants, planting, and helping with large projects. Large projects include things like:

THE CRUM CREEK CLEAN UP

The Crum Creek Woods: Right along Swarthmore's campus, and right next to where I live. Sadly, I did not take this picture, but it sure is nice.

As is to be expected, volunteers and staff spread out over a rather large area, and moved along the creek and surrounding woods picking up trash to celebrate Earth Day. What was cool about this, besides how much trash we pulled out of there, was this bizarre find I stumbled upon. Sadly, I did not have my camera and didn't get a picture.

 

But first, some exposition:

 

I was on the top of a small hill, looking down through the woods towards what would have been the creek, had I been able to see through the understory as the elevation changed. I was surrounded on all sides by some pretty old trees, and their canopies kept the understory rather clear, so rooting around wasn't too difficult. I was looking for trash hot spots: places with a few old logs good for sitting and a hole in the canopy, places that seemed like nice spots where college kids might want to drink beer. There were many of these, as we discovered.

But it was still early in the day when I saw a spot I thought had high beer drinking potential: five trees close together, almost in a circle, creating a space with a rough five foot diameter. When I got there, I didn't see any trash, but upon walking through the tree circle, I heard (and felt) the crunching of glass under my feet.

Groan. Added level of trash extraction difficultly. Moment of cost-benefit analysis. Scanning the woods to ascertain how hard everyone else is working, and if I am being left behind. Everyone else seems to have more in their bags. Groan. Who buries beer bottles?

Jerks. Jerks do. Groan.

But, it wasn't beer bottles. Someone had buried little empty jars, about the size of small jam jars, except instead of that heavy duty glass smuckers uses, the glass was very thin. There were no lids anywhere. After I realized there were multiple jars, I hunkered down and slowly became absorbed in getting them out of the ground.

 

I dug up eighteen of those little jars, all intentionally buried right next to each other, all in a row, all on their long sides, all filled with dirt. They were almost two inches under the leaf litter, and an inch and a half underneath the surface of the ground. As I pulled on out after another I came up with all sorts of reasons somebody, or a group of somebodies, might do this. None were very satisfying.

 

About jar ten, it got a little eerie. It got eerie because I suddenly realized how strange it was. These jars had been recently buried. The dirt around them had been recently disturbed, and was still very soft. Soft enough that even with the cushion of leaf litter and actual humus/soil my 110 pounds was enough to break the first two I stepped on. There weren't any kind of markers nearby indicating that it was part of some strange soil experiment, or that data collection of some kind was going on, and there was nothing in the jars. Makes you wonder what people in this world are doing with their spare time.

There was also this strange feeling of just missing a person, as if the jars had been so recently buried that my people sensing subconscious alert system could still pick up signs that a human had been there, and was close by. The other volunteers soon passed me, as I pulled out jar after jar, and the woods around me became quiet as the lines marched onward and the conversations and sounds of bags and footsteps disappeared and I was alone.

The glass was cool to the touch, and the chill spread to the tips of my fingers, and even though no one was around, I found myself listening intently for snapping twigs or the recognizable sound of the human gait through the leaves that fell in the previous autumn, and I was reminded of those times when I knew instantly that something strange and human was happening. Like the time we attempted to set up a tent on your property in the dark and heard someone walking through the woods and we ran back to your house, or that strange night someone knocked on the window next to where I was sitting when I was home alone and I called the police. That feeling of instantly knowing that that is the sound of something that knows you are there. That is what I felt as I threw those last few jars away. 

Plants of the day:

Fair warning, there aren't many because my camera is out of batteries. But this weekend I'm going to Longwood and Winterthur (whew!) and I should get some pretty MINDBlOGGLINGLY AWESOME PHOTOS that will eventually be uploaded to picasa. 

Acer pensylvanicum 'Erythrocladum' or Moosewood

See the striped bark? Its considered a weed in some places, but I think its rather fetching.

 

God, why am I such a terrible photographer.

Epimedium grandiflorum 'Lilafee' I think Epimediums are also called goat weed.

They. are. cool.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnddddd

some Euphorbia (amygdaloides var. robbiae)

Adventure is out there.

Mt. Cuba Wildflower Celebration

There are many types of gardens, and many types of gardeners. Ultimately, all gardens highlight the specific goals of their creators. Many large gardens seek to create a sense of space, to provide useful information to the public, or combine horticultural aspirations with truly artistic endeavors. But all gardens have one thing in common: they are created and maintained by people for people. This creates all kinds of fascinating conflicts and tension between the humans that care for the gardens, and the plants, animals, and climate conditions that are competing for and occupying the space, despite our dedication to removing or altering them. And despite all our best efforts to control our little spaces, a garden is ultimately a losing battle. There are weeds, insect pests, animal pests, unexpected adverse weather conditions, disease, the struggle to maintain seasonal interest, etc. etc. Despite this, we are happy to continue the timeless dance of selection, protection, and eradication.

 

Actually, eradication and selection go hand in hand, and the complex relationship that humans have with the plants they love is founded on the importance of the eradication.

 

Get the stuff we don't want or need out!

 

But back to gardens. Anyone who has ever been to a botanical garden can tell that they are deeply human creations. The plants that adorn their glasshouse displays, outdoor walking trails, impressive collections and education centers are not wild creatures. They are manicured; they are fertilized, pruned, replaced and labeled. They are a reflection our values and our interests. When we look at the plants we have so carefully bred for centuries for scent and color display and texture, when we are awed and inspired by plants we select, and we create, when we say, only the natural complexity and mystery of this world could have rendered something so beautiful as a rose, or an apple, or an oak, we have forgotten that we are the architect. Those beautiful daffodils are tiny mirrors; we see ourselves looking back.

After all, we all know that a landscape is not actually the mountains and trees and little waterfalls that it depicts. It is clear to us that a painting of a particular landscape is simply the expression of a particular artist's understanding of a particular environment. It does not exist independently of the human mind, unlike the actual location it depicts, because it is a symbol. It is a placeholder for a human experience, riddled with subtle implications about how one should feel about that particular location, and what about that location is valuable. And so it is with the plants we love. We are growing little representations of the things we value in the natural world.

Perhaps also, hidden in our gardens, are subtle cues as to the things we fear, things that are a bit haunting to our sensibilities.
 

 

And what we fear now, are invasives. And with good reason. But first, some definitions for your reading pleasure:

 

The easiest way to describe invasive plants is to define their opposite: native non-invader plants. Native non-invaders are those species or populations that have evolved and adapted to live in a specific location or environment without the interference of humans. They are plants that exist in balance with their environment and the organisms that are found there. However, just because a plant is native does not mean it is always non-invasive. In some instances, such as the involvement of humans, environments become unbalanced and in some instances, natives can exhibit invasive potential as they take over an environment in chaos. But it is a MUCH more common attribute of non-native plants and critters [think Australia].  Examples of invasives also helps to really put what we are afraid of into perspective. Kudzu is a great example:

All looks the same, doesn't it?

 

Lets be honest with ourselves though, for a moment. What we are really talking about here is the march toward globalization! The information age, when the world became flat, is what they say we'll be saying in one hundred years. Competition! Survival of the fittest! The great age of unification, where diversity was lost on every front amidst the great flourishing of a new global culture. We're all in this together! Look at all these new things we can buy! Look at all these other people we didn't know existed!

 

Globalization is the ultimate in double edged swords. It will give millions of people access to life-changing information and potentially a better future, and it will also guarantee that not everyone makes it into the boat before the flood. Entire cultural perspectives, entire peoples, languages, and historical consciousnesses may be lost. It is clear that tensions are being felt around the globe, as change rumbles under the earth, shifting our cultural weather patterns, and revealing new fault lines.

But what does this have to do with Mt. Cuba?

It is a truly gorgeous place. Mount Cuba, a private garden in Delaware, contains nearly 600 acres of woodlands, streams, and fields. They have created a beautiful series of gardens composed entirely of native plants rescued from on and off the property. It is an extremely impressive organization. Five dollars and a reservation will get you a two hour tour of the gardens. You can't even see a matinée for that anymore. While the amount of land they have is relatively large, the organized gardens themselves are relatively small, even though they are breathtaking. They are particularly well known for their wildflower gardens, which peaked this weekend at the Mt. Cuba Wildflower Celebration. This annual celebration featured free admission, a variety of informational booths located throughout the gardens, a free coreopsis, and lots of staff mingling with visitors, ready at a moment's notice to offer all sorts of useful information 

Long story short, I spent three hours trying to find this place on Saturday, and got hopelessly lost. I eventually found it, only to find out that the event was TODAY, Sunday, and that I would have to come back. It then rained all day today. Needless to say, when I got up this morning, I was not too excited about reliving the nightmare. But I went, and I am planning on going back.

 

It doesn't feel like you are in a garden for the majority of the trails. Instead it feels as though you are simply in the woods, and lucky enough to be surrounded by mysterious and haunting flowers which exist for no other purpose than to remind you how gaudy roses really are, and how obnoxious breeding for double petals and larger size and brighter color can be. It will be difficult for me to go to Lowe's anytime soon, and not be ashamed of the zinnias for sale. It is clear that these plants do not exist solely for our enjoyment, but as part of a larger network of breathing energy pathways and resource sinks, with complex pollinator rituals and communication, dependent not on our care, but on the length of days and the temperature at daybreak, and at the mercy of the last frost. They are delicate, and often pale with strange architecture, so subtle that without noticing you could easily miss them; gems hidden on the forest floor.

 

One booth was dedicated to the identification and removal of invasives, those super-adaptable foreign plants previously mentioned. The booth reminded us that these buggers propagate readily, are difficult to kill, and are extremely competitive in the natural landscape, often because they have no natural predators, are resistant to different diseases, or simply grow like crazy.

The trick is, we love invasives. Most invasive plants were introduced here on purpose. They are easy to grow. They often put on impressive flower displays and rebloom. They aren't difficult to care for. They're often cool to look at. They provide enough parking, and you can find pretty much anything you need there, any time of day, at relatively low prices. When you go to other ones, the layout is pretty much the same. They are located everywhere, usually at least one in every town, sometimes more. At some of them, you don't even have to get out of the car. They'll put the food right through your driver side window. They have the products you have been taught to buy, created by brand names you have been taught to trust. There is something frighteningly ecological about them, and they are vibrant, rampant, and almost impossible to resist. Or stop.

All problems are faces of the same, larger problem.  

We love invasives because we are invasives, and we have a history of being environment changers and manipulators. Our gardens have always reflected our values and our ways of living, and the future for the beautiful, subtle, and rare living things is extremely grim. Endeavors like Mt. Cuba help to protect the things many people will never even know that they miss, and provide refuge for some of the tiny souls this world stands to lose if we don't get our appetites under control.

Remember the truth: Globalization is going to happen whether we like it or not and it is going to really hurt. We are going to emerge from it different than we were before. History will judge us based on what we choose to save, and what we allow to be bulldozed by the drive towards a more unified planet. It is not bad to buy zinnias at Lowe's. It is bad to suppose that all the cultural, environmental, and social components being lost didn't matter. What we must do, is notice what is really going on: we are about to begin the final stages of domesticating this whole planet. We are rebuilding this world, at least the parts we have access to, in our own image, and this project is reaching the global scale.

And I can tell you, that one of the things we are going to do as part of that process is make gardens to remind us of what has been lost, and what we stand to lose.

Invest in tulips, because they. aren't. going. anywhere.

The point is, Mt. Cuba is certainly a garden, but it is a garden that wishes it wasn't one. It is a garden that is subtle enough to fade into the surrounding woods without our noticing. It is a refuge, a quiet sanctuary for plants at risk. Mt. Cuba so artfully blurs the distinction between that which we have actively created, those plantings which are the reflection of our own souls, and those silent remnants of a quiet world which existed long before, that you aren't sure where the garden stops.

I felt a lot walking through Mt. Cuba today. I took pictures, but they don't really convey the soft beauty of the gardens, and I am not ambitious enough to try and describe how the quiet seemed to settle all around them, or how painful it was suddenly to see the native orchids in the mist, a silverbell by a quiet pond, a patch of shooting stars. I was almost tricked, and therein lies the real beauty. I almost forgot that I was in a garden. I looked all around for the edges, the rips in the masterful illusion that was so deftly manicured and quietly constructed to remind me of a place I will probably never find; it was a place I have never been, but a place seemed to know.

This is just to say that this is a complicated age with complicated values. We need to breathe more. Mt. Cuba is a great place to do some good breathing, and remember that the most valuable resource on this planet is life itself and it is beautiful.

Adventure is out there.

Mic Check

I would like, first of all, to apologize and offer fair warning: this is my first blog post, and I'm not really sure what it is I am doing on many levels. I don't really know html, or how to harness its immense power to create a shiny blog that does everything, or how to update constantly, or how to work twitter. I am not even very clear on what it is a blog is supposed to do. They kind of seem like strange public diaries, or photo albums with tedious and detailed captions, or rants about the state of everything, or odd hobby-centric do-it-yourself/look-at-what-I-did-myself forums.

I know, you are already super-interested. Just bear with me.

So, while I do not really know what the blog format in general attempts to accomplish, I do know what I, the witty and creative blog creator, would like to. Here's a bulleted list to break up the format:

• Provide pictures and updates to people who know me and are marginally interested in what I am doing.
• Record interesting plants and events, landscape designs/ideas (to those of you who know me are smirking at this one, and I mean, really smirking: I tell. I can hear the smirking from here but I'm new at this so just give me some slack), and thoughts that I have that I wish to develop later on (I know, barf), or that I hope readers (whoever you are) might find useful in your many endeavors.

I am sure that, despite not wanting to bore you with personal details and bizarre anecdotes and (gasp) scientific names, you will at some point (probably many points) find yourself scanning the volumes for any pictures or videos to break up the monotony. I will endeavor to provide interesting things to do/look at besides long chunks of meaningless text. Most of the pictures will be of plants, and many of these plants will be from my "plants of the day."

Soooo. I like to take these pictures during my lunch break at Scott Arboretum:

For example:

The Dove Tree, or Handkerchief Tree (Davidia involucrata)

Dove Tree! Awesome!

This one really really stinks, like what-is-that-smell-is-it-cat-urine-stinks. Its in the dogwood family, and is the only member of its genus. Its from China. It was first introduced to the United States around 1900, and is named for the French missionary/naturalist Father Armand David who was also the first westerner to describe, you guessed it, the giant panda. What a career.

Unless otherwise posted, all the pictures I put up on this will be taken by me. This brings up a whole new set of things to apologize for, but again, know that I am doing the best that I can.

 

Pulmonaria: common name=lungwort Certainly is a nice trick, that variegation. This is 'Little Star'. Its genus name refers to the idea that people a long time ago used to think it cured lung disease. Its native to Europe, with one or two native Asian species. A fun common name is soldiers and sailors.

One more, I think, for good measure? Maybe we'll stay variegated?

This is Disporum sessile 'Variegatum'. You've probably heard of fairy bells. If not, google it. This used to be considered an Asian fairy bell, until they tried to create a phylogeny with both North American fairy bells and Asian fairy bells and found out using tricksy genetics that they aren't as related as they look. Whoops! This is kind of a theme for how classification is going in general right now.

Stay tuned for Rhododendrons, wildflowers from Mt. Cuba, and notes from the Crum Creek Cleanup.