2017 Horticulture Internship Placements

Alexis Anthony
Claude Monet’s garden
Giverny, France

My name is Alexis Anthony and I went to Giverny, France to work in Claude Monet’s garden. From planting new plants in the main garden to arranging the lily pads in the pond, I had a very diverse experience being an intern at Monet’s garden. During my first few days, I spent my time deadheading flowering plants (the removal of dead flowers) such as iris and tulips that can be seen throughout the garden. This was a task that I continued to perform throughout my internship because different plants start producing flowers at different times. During my second week, I was trusted with the duty of planting new plants under the supervision of the senior gardeners. I continued to do this task throughout the rest of my internship. In the mornings, I would pull dead biannual plants, so that annual and perennial plants could be planted in their place. During the last full week of my internship, I had the privilege to arrange the lily pads in the water garden. This entailed me riding around in a small boat with one other worker. We would pull out the lily pads that were out of place and arrange the rest into small circles just as Monet had years ago. I loved my experience and I will treasure it for as long as I live. My favorite part of my internship was seeing different visitor’s expressions as they entered the garden. Some full of awe and others peaceful, their faces explained every feeling that I had during my five weeks in Giverny, France. I will forever carry the memories of sitting in the garden after open hours and smelling the sweet blend of roses and lavender while listening to the soft hum of bees.

Katherine Castillo
Rising Sophomore, Horticulture
City Roots
Columbia, SC

My name is Katherine Castillo and I am currently a sophomore at Clemson University. During the summer of 2017 I was given the opportunity to be an intern at City Root in Columbia, SC. During my internship I was able to work with mushrooms, microgreens, flowers, and the field crew. Although the working environment involved hard work under the sun, it was completely worth the knowledge and experiences I gained.

Vernon Dennis
Senior, Horticulture
Coastal Bloomers
St Simons Island, Georgia

During the summer of 2017 I had the wonderful opportunity to work with Clemson University Horticulture Alumni, Mrs. Karen Summers. She is the owner and operator of Coastal Bloomers located in St. Simons Island GA. Coastal Bloomers is an established landscape design and installation business that prides itself on the spectacular designs in both container and landscape mediums. Over the course of the summer and duration of my internship I was able to have a great amount of hands on learning by creating beautiful floral arrangements, learning proper garden care, using different weed pest management techniques, as well as going on consultations visits. My experience working with the Coastal Bloomers staff was both memorable and informative. I left with a wealth of knowledge and appreciation for the trade.

Rachel Edwards
Rising Senior, Horticulture
Costal Bloomers Specialty Gardening Inc.
Saint Simons Island, GA

My name is Rachel Edwards and I recently developed a strong passion for Horticulture. I had the pleasure of spending my summer on the resort island of Saint Simons, located near the Florida / Georgia line. I spent my time installing and maintaining beautiful flowerbeds, containers, and interior displays. Most of our work was on Sea Island, a gated community on a private island with beachfront homes on one side of the street and marsh front homes on the other. We worked all around Saint Simons Island as well, and even had the exciting opportunity to spend a week on Jekyll Island preparing a local hotel for a wedding, My job consisted of daily maintenance routines including pruning any over-grown plants or dead leaves, dead-heading flowers, watering/fertilizing plants, and of course a lot of weeding. Particularly for our area we battled the dollar weed; it would just propagate under ground if you did not get the entire root system (one of my biggest victories pictured below). However, the majority of the beginning of the summer consisted of installing plants, preparing beds, laying out plants and designing beds/containers, and of course laying mulch. I loved the design aspect of the job and I enjoyed the daily maintenance because you got to care directly for the plants and watch them grow. I did not enjoy the intense coastal Georgia heat but the excitement I had for the job made it bearable.

Elizabeth Elmore
Longwood Gardens

I was a greenhouse production Intern at Longwood Gardens. As a greenhouse production intern, I worked in multiple sections of the gardens. I mainly worked at the off-site nursery propagating plants and maintaining them. Other areas I worked in were the conservatory, tissue culture lab, Integrated Pest Management lab, and the on-site greenhouses. In this picture, I was exploring the lily ponds outside of Longwood’s conservatory. Patrons and interns can take a class about water lilies. We had a lot of fun wading through the ponds. I highly recommend Longwood Gardens as a place to be an intern. They want you to take multiple learning opportunities and take interns on weekly field trips. I learned about many aspects of the botanical garden business and am more well-rounded as a result.

Anna Fisher
Senior, Horticulture
Arnold Arboretum

My name is Anna Fisher and I am a senior Horticulture major at Clemson University. This past summer I worked in the greenhouses at Arnold Arboretum because I wanted to expand my knowledge of public horticulture. At the greenhouse, I worked on collecting cuttings, mulching, accessioning, planting cuttings and young trees, pruning, releasing beneficials, repotting, sanitizing, scouting, watering, and weeding. I absolutely loved this internship because I was exposed to so much in such a short period of time. It really broadened my view of public horticulture. I would definitely recommend working here.

Shannon Gallagher
Senior, Horticulture
Reedy River Farms LLC.
Greenville, SC

My name is Shannon Gallagher and I am a senior Horticulture student who had the privilege of an incredible internship experience this summer at Reedy River Farms in Greenville, SC. Located in downtown Greenville right off the Swamp Rabbit Trail, Reedy River Farms is a small scale urban produce supplier that provides fresh organic vegetables to nearby restaurants and citizens. I was able to be directly involved in all aspects of the business while working as an intern: sowing seeds, caring for plants, harvesting, preparing vegetables for purchase, working at the farmer’s market, and much more. I had an amazing experience this summer and I am so glad I chose to intern where I did. I was able to use many of the ideas and knowledge I had been exposed to in classes firsthand and see the tangible results of these concepts.

Madison MacInnis
Senior, Horticulture
Head-Lee Nursery
Seneca SC

My name is Madison MacInnis. I’m a rising senior at Clemson University studying Horticulture. For the summer of 2017, I enjoyed an internship at Head Lee Nursery in Seneca, SC. This was a great experience for me because I learned so much about caring for plants, talking to customers, and plant breeding. A few of my experiences included pruning, fertilizing, spraying herbicide, landscape design, plant problem diagnosis, selecting for plant characteristics, and plant cloning. I am very grateful for the time I had at Head Lee this summer as everyone there feels like my family and I got to spend all day with beautiful plants.

Ryan Murphy
Junior, Horticulture
Big Island Farms
Big Island, Hawaii

I am a driven and motivated person who likes to challenge myself and explore new opportunities and possibilities. I do not come from a family of agricultural background. My passion for plants is a self-driven passion that I have cultivated through my experiences and my time at Clemson. I was able to follow my passion to the Big Island Farms in Honokaa, Hawaii. Big Island Farms is a program that connects the staff and interns to the earth and to the cultural surrounding us on the island. An appreciation for the land and what is produced and recycled into it is a key aspect of permaculture and is what we practiced on the farm. We tried to make most of our meals from the land we were cultivating, everything from bananas and papayas to Brazilian spinach and macadamia nuts. We did many outreach visits to local farms and to local sacred sites so that we could become a part of the unique Hawaiian culture and to be embraced as O’hana. A deep respect for the culture and the traditions were taken back with us to the farm and implemented in the daily tasks we did to better the farm and the land we cultivated. Each day we performed specialized tasks such as propagating to expand the nursery stock, mulching to supply nutrients to existing trees, weeding, composting, bed design and a specialized project. The project consisted of creating a budget and materials list as well as a full design using permaculture techniques. We had 10 weeks to get this together and begin implementation of our design to help foster future growth of the farm. This experience I had on the Big Island Farms was incredible and impacted me in ways I never imagined. Working with the land and cultivating it for future interns was meaningful. The respect I have for the culture and the traditions of Hawaiian culture is something I still carry with me. I highly recommend this life changing experience to anyone willing to step out of their comfort zone.

Bailey Pedersen
Sophomore, Horticulture
Costa Farms
Trenton, SC

I am Bailey Pedersen, a sophomore horticulture major at Clemson University. This summer, I had the opportunity to intern at Costa Farm’s Trenton, South Carolina location. Costa Farms is one of the largest wholesale plant growers in the United States. They have many locations across the Southeast. The Trenton location, where I worked, specializes in herbaceous perennials. While I was interning this summer, I was given the opportunity to work under each division of growing. I worked with pest management scouts, irrigators, plant maintenance, and chemical workers. By working with each of these teams, I was able to learn the entire process of growing plants. This internship gave me the opportunity to learn the ins and outs of growing plants on a large scale, and the information I learned will be extremely beneficial in the future.

Mary Vargo
Claude Monet
Giverny, France

My name is Mary Vargo. I’m a senior Horticulture major at Clemson University, and I worked for the Claude Monet Foundation as a summer intern, assisting the gardeners in keeping the grounds as beautiful and full of life and color as the famous paintings Claude Monet had painted of his own home. Making this huge transition from a comfortable life back home, to a world where I was challenged in speaking another language, finding my way around town on a bike, and assisting professional gardeners in their everyday tasks, was exciting and let me start defining myself as a force in the work field, as well as in the world. I was humbled by the experience, being taught by the gardeners who assisted in the reclamation of the historic grounds was truly an honor and I learned so much from them. I will be forever thankful for the knowledge they educated me with while I worked alongside them and learned everything I could from them!

Angelica Werth
Sophomore, Horticulture/Spanish
The Olde Farm
Bristol, VA

I am a rising sophomore horticulture and Spanish dual degree student. This summer, I interned at The Olde Farm, a prestigious golf club in southwestern Virginia. Though it is a golf club, it has a large garden, which grows mainly vegetables, several fruit trees, a greenhouse, a small herb garden, and five active beehives. My responsibilities were to help maintain all of the above areas, as well as several planters full of flowers. I also assisted with landscaping tasks throughout the facility, and I harvested crops. Overall, I rather enjoyed the experience. It’s not fun to be working long hours in the heat, of course, but planting and transplanting, weeding, pruning, and harvesting are all activities that I like. I learned that I prefer indoor production, and I prefer flowers to vegetables or fruit trees.