I’m once again a gun for hire, shooting lots of photos for the Curatorial Office at Longwood. Here’s a tapestry of the work I’ve been doing in the perennial beds, logging the blooms of late summer.
Floral Design Class January 14, 2009
Nancy’s Biedermeier Design for Class
Tuesday afternoons are my ticket to heaven for the next 12 weeks. I have to pinch myself when I walk into the classroom always stuffed to the gills with buckets and buckets of myriad flowers in dozens of shades and textures. It really is an honor to be under the tutelage of Nancy Gingrich Shenk, a very accomplished and respected floral designer here at Longwood and around the world. Her design skills are inspiring, especially the speed with which she creates an arrangement.
During our time together in the classroom, she is extending to us her knowledge of colors, historical designs, wedding pieces, contemporary trends, and hand bunches. I greatly appreciate Nancy’s commitment to teaching us about sustainable design techniques, namely steering clear of using floral foam whenever possible. To that end, we are learning to design in sand, chicken wire, and simply in a clear vase with a network of stems for support. Thanks to this class, my floral design portfolio is quickly growing and increasing in quality!
Nancy’s Designs and Our Copies
Christmas is in the air – Literally! November 19, 2008
The past several weeks, all Longwood staff have been racing around and preparing for Christmas decorating. One of the projects I helped with was a large wreath-turned-chandelier to be hung in the loft treehouse. Yesterday it was hoisted into place. I documented the process as I found the carpenters’ system interesting.
Work in Plant Records November 14, 2008
This month I’m working with the plant records office where I picked up a special project, making my job this month the best in the world. I get to walk around the garden taking photos of the highlights each week and put them on the Longwood website. Here’s a few of the more beautiful shots of Longwood in the fall.
July Rotation: Production July 24, 2008
I spent the very hot month of July with the production group. The first week was spent in the modern and sophisticated greenhouses in Lower Production/33G. There I worked mostly at potting mums and poinsettias and seeding various crops with the custom-made seeding machine.
The second and third weeks I spent mostly in the estate houses – “state-of-the-art greenhouses”….in 1921. While these houses were very hot and not at all modern, I found the work more interesting and learned a great deal from Jason about the challenges of greenhouse production and about the cut flower industry.
My final week was spent with the crew over in the nursery who handles outdoor display production. There I did a lot of staking, tying, potting and watering. We also “deconstructed” a greenhouse that was too hot to use unless we cut out the middle section of plastic. That was interesting. Generally speaking though, I don’t think greenhouse production is an area I’d get into as I enjoy growing plants from start to finish and putting them in the ground.
Air Spade June 11, 2008
This post is a bit belated, but definitely deserving of some “air time” (pun totally intended). I got the honor of using the air spade on my last day in the nursery. I have to admit I was a bit intimidated by the power of this tool. And getting suited up in the heat wasn’t a ton of fun. However, the results were impressive and the procedure necessary for the Ilex opaca, which were showing stunted growth.
The air spade, which uses very strong blasts of air, uncovers the root system of a tree without damaging the roots themselves. It’s a messy process (thus the head-to-toe suit) and more effective in some soils (sand) than others (clay). Once the roots are exposed, we got under the tree branches and cleared out the mess of roots too close to the surface and any that were circling around the flare of the trunk and strangling the tree. The reason these particular Ilex needed the air spade was due to being planted too low in the first place. Since the flare of the tree was buried (a tree planted right will have its flare showing just about ground level), the roots were sticking close to the surface and wrapping around the portion of the trunk that was buried. The pictures below should demonstrate the point.
So many roots (exposed by air spading) that you can’t even see the flare.
We cut away the roots, exposing the flare.
And finally we filled in the shallow spaces bewteen the remaining roots with leaf mold and some soil.
Notice that the flare is now very visible, as it should be.
Tissue Culture Lab June 9, 2008
My major efforts in this month’s research rotation center around “the hood” in the tissue culture. It’s a little disorienting, being in there for several hours at a time, what with all the noise from air circulating to remove any wayward particals that could contaminate the tissue cultures. It takes a meticulous personality to do the work “in the hood”, as we so fondly refer to it. Developing systems for the work is the key to success. Sensory deprevation aside, I find the tubes of young plants very interesting and being part of this work is very educational.
Meristem Isolation in Tissue Culture Lab June 3, 2008
Picture taken from http://www.steve.gb.com/science/plant_growth.html
Two days into the research rotation and I’m already really enjoying the work. Alan gave me a shot right away at meristem isolation on chrysanthemums, an incredibly intriguing and patience-teaching process. I wish I could put a picture I took up here to demonstrate, but I don’t have the tools to take photos through a microscope. Thus, I’ll just have to paint the picture with words (and steal an illustration from another website).
First off, the reason for meristem isolations is to enable virus-free propagation. For instance, I am working with chrysanthemums that have had a virus, but getting new plants of these varieties is not possible due to international restrictions on the ones that came from abroad and other various reasons. As such, if Longwood wants to continue using these varieties in their mums display each autumn, the plants must be propagated in a way that rids them of the virus. A meristem is the growing point where cells begin differentiating to form leaves. As such, the virus hasn’t infiltrated it yet. Under the microscope, a meristem just looks like a perfect sphere of green jelly.
To perform a meristem isolation, I begin with about a two inch cutting of the apical tip (end of a stem where leaves are emerging). In a sterile chamber under a hood that removes any contaminated air, I then use a microscope to carefully cut away the tiny leaves that are just beginning to form, peeling them away like the way you peel an onion. Slowly, the inside of the stem emerges, along with all the “hair” that surrounds the meristem of mums. Under increased magnification, I have to carefully scrap away the hairs, a very tedious process, until the top of the meristem appears like a glowing little orb. Next comes the trickiest step: I have to hold my breath and make very finite cuts with the tip of the scalpel to shave out a “pedestal” under the meristem so that I can then pop it off without bursting it. After the meristem is on the tip of my scalpel, I then place it in a tube with augur and hope that it grows into a new virus-free plant.
What’s really shocking about this process and what I wish I could picture is how tiny this little blob is. The first time I did it, I was very focused on my work under the microscope and didn’t bother to look at anything out from under it until the end. What had looked so important and noticeable under magnification was just the teeny tiniest speck on the end of my scalpel that I really wouldn’t have seen if I hadn’t known to squint hard and look for it. I can’t believe I could find the thing, let alone isolate it and pick it up! Apparently this ability is a bit of a talent as Alan says not everyone gets it, let alone on their first try. Yah for me, I guess. All I know is I really enjoy performing meristem isolation, and I think I might get lots of practice at it this month, judging from the gleem in Alan’s eye
Rotation: Nursery May 12, 2008
I’m spending the month of May in the nursery, working with Naomi, Matt and Mike. I have to say, I don’t think any rotation will be able to top the fun this crew has together. Matt in particular, as a former PG, has been a fount of knowledge about both nursery work and about the PG program’s history.
The work itself is pretty intense, considering the size of the majority of the plants there. On the plus side, the nursery has all the big toys, including the JCB, a massive front-end loader with jaws that I got to learn how to use. We used the JCB to rip out large trees and dump them in the compost bins. In addition to the machines, there’s a good deal of less glamorous work to be done, including pruning, watering, potting, and acession labeling. I enjoyed getting a few rainy days to work in the greenhouses, potting up seedlings.
