Monday, June 2, 2014

The TY 12-week Training Program: The Polly Hill Arboretum Summer 2014 Internship Exclusive Interview!

The goal of this program is to be able to bike 10-miles uphill, both ways, in the snow, to the grocery store. Or so Tessa said both begrudgingly and jokingly after a “wicked” 4-mile bike ride to the Polly Hill Arboretum to help with the wildly-successful plant sale on May 24.

All joking aside, the Polly Hill Arboretum staff has the great fortune of having Tessa Young, a Rhode Island native and rising sophomore at the University of Rhode Island, and Eva Colberg, rising junior at the College of William and Mary and all the way from Palmer, Alaska, on board for ten more weeks to help over the summer


Tessa Young, left, and Eva Colberg, right, at the Gay Head Lighthouse viewing area
the day after they came to Martha's Vineyard.
The two of them jumped right in at the Hoft Farm vegetable garden just after moving in and were in the thick of it at the Polly Hill Arboretum by the end of the first day. You can easily find them weeding, mulching or mowing the grass (or a tree, as during episode two of Freakout 2014) on the grounds nowadays, but how did they come to join us here?

After a long rant in an old stereotypical Jewish voice from Tessa and a lot of laughing by Eva and myself, we all sat down for a little chat to reflect on how they got here and how awesome horticulture is!

Eva is majoring in biology, where she if focusing on plant sciences, since William and Mary does not offer a major in horticulture. Before this past semester, she was an International relations major, looking to study environmental policy, but found herself involved in the Botany Club and gardening. She says she didn’t think to do it party because she didn’t think she could do what has been done before, as all of her family back home are still involved in some kind of agriculture or nature-related field.

Tessa is majoring in horticulture, and hopefully minoring in sustainable agriculture, and has spent the last couple of years working at a local greenhouse and farm stand.

~~~

They come from different places, but have similar “budding” horticulture experiences.  Both noted their family grew up taking care of plants and that nature was a big part of their lives.

Tessa had an eighth grade teacher who let her help with his jade plants once a week.

“Having a teacher who kind of saw [I was interested in plants] and was interested in helping me move along that interest,” Tessa said about her start in horticulture. “Since then I’ve begged my parents to let me have a garden in the backyard.”

Eva grew up helping her father pick out and plant trees in his apple orchard (and this year she is using her mad drawing skills to design the logo for their 7th annual apple smashing!). But, she also found that as she studied more about sustainable agriculture the more she wanted to be a part of it.

“I just came closer to the realization,” Eva said. “That was the biggest part.”

~~~

Favorite plants are hard to pin down for some horticulturists, but Eva had a quick answer.

Theobroma cacao,” she chuckled, mischievously, “because I love chocolate. And it’s a gorgeous tree.”

It wasn’t as easy for Tessa, who couldn’t nail down a specific one after much thought.

“I’m interested in all succulents,” she said. “It might even have to do with my eighth grade teacher having his jade plants.” And him giving her a piece of one to thank her for her help!

“They are just so interesting, I think,” she continued. “They come in all sorts of interesting shapes and their leaves are just so squishy,” she said with a giggle.

~~~

“Seriously?!” was the first thing out of Tessa’s mouth when she was offered the intern position at PHA. It was a long way off from going back to work at the greenhouse and farmstand over the summer, where she thought she would be going. Eva knew she didn’t want to go back to babysitting and thought something on the East Coast would be a good idea.

“[The Polly Hill Arboretum Internship] was amazing. One of the things that struck me about this one was that they actually want you to learn during the internship,” Eva reflected. “It’s not just ‘run and get coffee for our main staff.’”

But beyond the awesomeness of the internship, both Eva and Tessa knew that this experience would expose them to many more experiences and show them more options within the field of horticulture.

~~~

The question was: what is the most challenging aspect of living on Martha’s Vineyard? Granted they’d only been here a week, but, Answer:

“I would have to say living on Martha’s Vineyard is honestly the easiest place I’ve ever lived,” Eva said without a second thought. “Here it’s a bigger bubble and there’s a whole new set of things. And it’s still bike-able, or run-able.”

Tessa reflected more about being away from home, since this is one of her first times being far away from home.

“I’ve always been in Rhode Island. At school I’m only 45 minutes away,” she said. “It’s not that I’m that far away now. It’s just two hours, but it’s just that whole idea of being farther away from my parents and being pushed out of the nest.”

“Friends, family and ticks, I guess” she finished. “Everything else is super nice out here. It’s beautiful, like can’t even describe with words how beautiful it is.”

Ticks and poison ivy were definitely at the top of the list of challenges, especially given the ticks are tiny and there is PI aplenty. The need to check yourself after someone else find a tick gets to even the best of us.

~~~

Although it had only been a week since their arrival, the ladies already had a favorite part of the internship. Besides getting stronger and being exposed to new horticultural tasks, their favorite part was even simpler than that.

“Just being outside all day and just doing stuff,” Tessa stated plainly.

Passion was something else they both identified and each had a resonating experience that really showed they are in the right place.

“Working with people who are passionate,” Tessa continued. “It’s funny because we all eat lunch together and while you’re eating lunch people are still talking about plants, so you know it’s not just a job thing. It’s a thing that people are actually passionate about. That means a lot to me.”

“The people and the atmosphere are just so conducive to learning about plants,” Eva added.

“My favorite part this week was just one moment when I’ve just finished whatever task we had for the moment,” Eva explained, “and we had just a few minutes until wherever we needed to be next and Tom was like ‘oh, well, let’s go wander!’ And he was talking about plant species and so open to questions, and willing to answer anything. That was just amazing because I had not been expecting that level of engagement.”

~~~

“Cast my seeds,” Tessa said, wispily, and with a groan from myself and Eva. “And see where I land, and grow and sprout.”

Both Tessa and Eva have a while until they are out in the professional horticulture world, and they don’t really know where they’re going to end up; but they understand they want to be working with plants in some way and that now is the time to learn and gain experience.

“I just want to make sure I get the most that I can and not let it go to waste because it’s an amazing opportunity,” Eva said.

Eva’s keeping an eye out for opportunities in both horticulture and agriculture, with a focus in sustainability; and Tessa’s looking to gain more experience in other fields within horticulture, beyond public horticulture.

Wherever they are in their plans, they are both keeping an open mind about the coming years.


“All I know is that wherever I do end up I’m sure I’ll be happy wherever I am, as long as I’m involved with working with plants and being around people who are enthusiastic and love what they’re doing,” Tessa said, bringing the conversation full circle.

No comments:

Post a Comment