Native Plant Apprentice: Emma Boice
Emma cleans the gardens by the Welcome Center.
This summer I completed a Native Landscape Management Apprenticeship at Reflection Riding. I started in late April, days before my college graduation, with a pretty decent knowledge of plants as a whole but very little about the plants native to our area. I remember walking the trails with DeAnna as she pointed out dozens of plant species and being blown away by the immense diversity of the property. If there’s any place to learn native plants, it’s Reflection Riding.
My apprenticeship followed the life of a plant from seed to fully grown. We hiked miles to bag and collect seeds and trek them back to the greenhouse to be processed and sown. I learned a lot about the care that goes into seed collection, stratification, and sowing; it’s not as simple as throwing some pods into the soil (although sometimes it is). Each plant is unique and requires its own special care, and it was a very grounding experience to tend to plants in this way.
(Left to right) Shandelle, Deanna, and Emma pose by the Dawn Redwood.
As I started my time here in early summer, the plants were doubling in size seemingly overnight, and every new morning brought fresh blooms and new foliage. We spent a lot of time repotting plants. The repotting list never seemed to grow shorter, but the abundance of life was a wonderful thing to see. The days spent repotting were some of my favorites. Knowing that someone had sown the seeds of this plant weeks or months prior gave me a sense of being a part of something bigger than myself—the interaction and coordination of countless individuals before ending up in the hands of a customer.
Working in the East Tennessee summer heat was not always the most fun thing in the world, but seeing the work we had completed at the end of each day was wildly rewarding. I’d leave the nursery covered in soil and sunburnt feeling happy and satisfied. The amount of sprinklers available to run through on the property was a big bonus in the summer.
My time spent at Reflection Riding gave me a wonderful stepping stone out of college and into the environmental field, a strong working knowledge of native plants and their care, and cherished connections with those I worked with. I recommend this apprenticeship to anyone looking to build experience in the field of environmental work, plant identification, plant nursery operations, or anyone just looking for an awesome experience in the outdoors.