Summer Horticulture Intern

Location: Swarthmore

Summer Horticulture Intern

Apply now Job no: 495793

Work type:
Temporary Part Time

Location:

Swarthmore

Categories:
Staff, Hourly (Non-Exempt), On Campus

Swarthmore College is a highly selective liberal arts college located in the suburbs of Philadelphia, whose mission combines academic rigor with social responsibility. Swarthmore has a strong institutional commitment to inclusive excellence and nondiscrimination in its educational program and employment practices and encourages candidates who will further advance the goal of fostering a diverse and inclusive community. As one of the nation's finest institutions of higher learning, Swarthmore College is global in outlook and draws students from around the nation and world.

The 425‐acre campus is a designated arboretum, complete with gardens, rolling lawns, a creek, wooded hills, and hiking trails in the Crum Woods.

Who We Are:

The Scott Arboretum and Gardens is a unique garden of ideas and suggestions, encouraging horticulture in its broadest sense through displays on the 400-plus acre campus of Swarthmore College. The Arboretum is a living memorial to Arthur Hoyt Scott, Swarthmore, Class of 1895, and was established in 1929. We strive to offer some of the region's most intimate, authentic, and accessible horticultural experiences.

The Scott Arboretum and Gardens' mission is to delight, educate, and inspire visitors to enjoy the many benefits of horticulture, regardless of their resources or expertise. Our "garden of ideas" features plant varieties that thrive in this region, encouraging wise stewardship as well as the cultivation of plants to sustain the body, enchant the eye, and sooth the spirit.

The Arboretum has been accredited as a Level III Arboretum by Arb Net. The collection houses over 4,000 types of ornamental plants across 14 plant collections, over 20 formal garden spaces, and a 200-acre maintained woodland. Three of the collections, Ilex (hollies), Quercus (oaks), and Magnolia are nationally accredited and the Arboretum is recognized as an American Conifer Society Reference Garden.

Garden spaces are maintained by a staff of 18 full-time horticultural professionals with the assistance of volunteers. For more information, visit scottarboretum.org.

The opportunity:

The Summer Horticulture Internship offers a unique work experience in a campus arboretum well-suited to an individual interested in a career in ornamental/public horticulture. On-the-job training includes exposure to garden maintenance, plant records and curation, plant propagation, and volunteer interaction. Summer interns rotate with gardening staff affording exposure to all areas of the Scott Arboretum & Gardens including a sustainable rose garden, intimate garden settings of the Cunningham House, Pollinator Garden, and Harry Wood Garden, green roofs, and seasonal container gardening featuring unusual annuals and tropical plants.

Other opportunities typically include: admittance to the Woody Plant Conference, plant walks, lunch with the Director, field excursions to visit area gardens, sessions with staff, equipment use demonstration, and writing Plants of the Week, a feature on the Arboretum's blog, Garden Seeds.

The internship is a minimum of 10 to maximum of 28 weeks; typically starting in March to May and ending August to October. Work hours are 8:30 am - 12:00 pm and 1:00 pm - 4:30 pm, with occasional evening and weekend hours depending on events.

Essential Responsibilities

* Assists in maintaining the plant collections by performing timely planting, weeding, mulching, pruning, fertilizing, irrigating, leaf raking, and other plant cultural practices in order to maintain campus aesthetics and provide proper horticultural care. Assists in design modifications as needed to the Arboretum's landscape and gardens. Assists in plant records and plant curation as needed.

* Assists in maintaining specialty garden areas consisting of Glade Garden, Harry Wood Garden, Nason Garden, Pinetum, Pollinators Garden, Singer Hall landscape, Winter Garden, magnolia and holly collections, green roofs, various courtyard gardens and major horticultural collections as the most intensively-maintained gardens on campus.

* Assists in maintaining a broad range of trees, shrubs, vines, herbaceous perennials, annuals, and turf grass.

* Cares for plants in the nursery and glasshouses.

* Assists with greenhouse and nursery operations by propagating, irrigating, fertilizing, and spraying plants as needed.

* Assists with special function set-up and tear-down in order to prepare the facilities in a timely manner for College- and Arboretum-hosted events.

* Writes Plant the week articles for the Scott Arboretum & Garden's blog, Garden Seeds

* Develop and lead a video segment of Gardener's Almanac for Scott Arboretum & Garden's You Tube channel.

* Safely and proficiently uses all hand gardening tools consisting of: pruners, shovels, rakes, loppers, hedge shears, and other gardening tools.

* With proper training becomes proficient at…