Blake Garden Manager, Part-time Limited Term (9723C) - Blake Garden

At the University of California, Berkeley , we are dedicated to fostering a community where everyone feels welcome and can thrive. Our culture of openness, freedom, and belonging makes it a special place for students, faculty, and staff, who are among the most talented and accomplished anywhere, including Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, and Mac Arthur Fellows. Since our founding in 1868, we have been an engine for innovation - driving intellectual, economic, and social progress that benefits California, the U.S., and beyond.

Together, we change the world.

At Berkeley, the best careers are built on a foundation of continuous learning and growth . We actively support professional development by providing all full-time staff employees with at least 80 hours of paid time per year and providing space for supportive colleague communities via numerous employee resource groups.

As a garden open four days a week above the Berkeley Hills in the town of Kensington, the Horticulturist serves in a front-facing role dedicated to stewardship, helping to preserve and promote the historical, cultural, and horticultural significance of the garden to the UC system and to local community. The Horticulturalist will work with garden management to support and grow curricular ties between the garden and the Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning department.

The Horticulturalist may also facilitate programs such as tours, field visits from students enrolled in the department’s undergraduate and graduate landscape architecture and environmental planning courses, and other internships and special projects.

This position reports to the Department Manager of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning. The Horticulturalist will be responsible for performing the duties as stated below with minimal supervision. Each Horticulturalist maintains and develops specific assigned areas of the Garden, but the following responsibilities and relative percentages of time apply to all Horticulturalists.

This is a part-time (43% FTE), Limited term appointment. A Limited appointee is expected to be on pay status for less than 1,000 hours in a rolling 12-month period.

The First Review Date for this job is:
August 28, 2026

60% Horticultural Maintenance

• Duties include watering, fertilizing, mulching, amending the soil, weeding, pruning, raking, planting, and other activities involved in cultivating plants. Identifies insect and plant pathogen problems and initiates appropriate mitigation methods. Performs enhancement, supplementation, and routine alterations of plant displays within their areas of responsibility; initiates request for re-propagation of existing plant materials to maintain the Garden’s collections. Requests routine landscape materials from the Garden Manager.
  
  Trains, schedules, works with, and supervises volunteers, students, and interns.
• Performs construction and reconstruction projects in their area. This includes keeping paths and roads clear and in safe condition, resurfacing and grading paths with appropriate materials; repairing rock work, stairways and bed edges; keeping drainage systems and streams clear of debris; controlling erosion in planted and traffic areas with appropriate berms, modified drainage systems and other appropriate devices.

20% Curation

• Participation in curation of the Blake Garden collection involves maintenance of plant information (plant records), conservation of the plant collection, and collection development. The curatorial responsibilities require specialized knowledge of plant associations, species rarity, special horticultural requirements, etc. The incumbent is expected to be knowledgeable about the plants contained within the collection and to act as an authority on the collection.
  
  This knowledge is utilized for plant acquisition, re-propagation, assessment and re-evaluation of the areas, curatorial policy, and project development.
• Initiates requests for plants through indices semina (seed lists), professional contacts, correspondence with collectors, or special garden collecting trips (off-site work).
• Record keeping is an essential…