PHILIPSTOWN GARDEN CLUB
Internships
KC Moss Internship Program
The Philipstown Garden Club‘s Summer Internship Program is open to local junior and senior high school students from the Philipstown Garden Club area. Each summer students are mentored by the staff of the participating non-profits, which include the Constitution Marsh Audubon Center and Sanctuary, Manitoga, and Stonecrop Gardens. The Internships provide insight to high school students on possible career paths and on the work being accomplished by non-profits in our local area. The Internship is a great resume builder for college applications.
The program involves eight 20-hour weeks during July and August, the details of the work schedule determined by the mentor organization and the Intern.
The Intern stipend of $1,600 is paid in two parts, with the final payment made only after the Interns have completed all requirements for the program. That includes a brief mid-season interview, photo op for the PCNR and PGC website, and a final report submitted to the PGC.
Application forms will be available on the PGC website and at Haldane and O’Neill Schools in early Spring. We suggest that all applicants visit the websites of the participating partners and have some knowledge of what their missions are before applying. After the application time period ends, applicants will be phoned to meet the PGC Committee for an interview. Selected applicants will then meet with the mentoring partners and set up a work schedule for the summer.
stonecrop gardens
Is offering a summer internship during the months of July and August to upcoming high school juniors, seniors, or graduating seniors.
Stonecrop is a premier public garden known for its diverse and sophisticated collection of plants and gardens. Interns work along side professional gardeners, gaining skills necessary to a professional in the field. Stonecrop is located in Cold Spring, off of Route 301.
The display gardens cover an area of approximately 12 acres and comprise a diverse collection of gardens and plants including woodland and water gardens, a grass garden, raised alpine stone beds, cliff rock gardens, and an enclosed English-style flower garden.
Applicants should have an interest in working with serious professional gardeners who are dedicated to their high quality of horticulture and to teaching interns. There are unique opportunities to learn about greenhouse management, plant propagation, and horticultural skills. In addition, interns spend time each day researching and writing up their “Plant of the Day,” chosen from the Stonecrop collection. Any interested intern should understand that the work at Stonecrop is both physically and intellectually challenging.
Applicants should be entering the twelfth grade this upcoming fall and should be available to work at least one weekend day.
It is highly recommended that you visit the organizations where you would like to work. Bring your application with you, and the admission fee will be waived.
Stipend - $1,600
Hours – eight 20-hour weeks, flexible hours
manitoga
Is offering a summer internship during the months of July and August to upcoming high school juniors, seniors, or graduating seniors.
Manitoga is the home of Russel Wright, the famous mid-century designer and architect. He is responsible introducing colorful simple designs into many areas of homewares, including dinner services and furniture.
Russel Wright changed 80 acres of land gutted by logging and quarrying into an ecological example of nature and the creations of man coexisting in harmony. Manitoga, Algonquin for A Place of Great Spirit, is now woodland paths, flowing brooks, flowering open spaces, and Mr. Wright’s home, built into its natural surroundings (A live cedar tree is the main support of the house).
During Summer 2019, the landscape intern will be working with staff on a project related to a planned year-long plans to eradicate invasives and planting replacements in the landscape. The 75-acre woodland garden of influential designer Russel Wright is currently undergoing careful restoration and preservation. The intern will work with staff to assess current conditions, and engage in a number of hands-on projects related to invasive plants and their threat to the environment, path maintenance, landscape preservation, and general upkeep.
It is highly recommended that you visit the organizations where you would like to work. Bring your application with you, and the admission fee will be waived.
Stipend - $1,600
Hours – eight 20-hour weeks, flexible hours
constitution marsh
Constitution Marsh Audubon Center and Sanctuary is a unique and beautiful 270-acre tidal marsh, located on the Hudson River in Cold Spring. Our goals at Constitution Marsh Sanctuary are twofold: to provide stewardship to this important wetland habitat and to share it with others.
In partnership with the Philipstown Garden Club, Constitution Marsh Audubon Center & Sanctuary is offering a summer high school internship during the months of July and August. Upcoming high school juniors, seniors, or graduating seniors are encouraged to apply.
Applicants should have an interest in science or environmental studies. General responsibilities include; help with regular maintenance and general upkeep, assistance in staffing the nature center, involvement with special projects and research, and care for our live animal exhibits. In addition, all interns must complete a project related to conservation and will be tasked with completing several smaller assignments throughout the internship.
It is highly recommended that you visit the organizations where you would like to work.
Stipend: $1,600
Hours: eight 20-hour weeks, flexible hours
The Philipstown Garden Club in collaboration with Stonecrop Gardens
had Shannon Ferri as this year’s summer intern. Shannon is a junior at Haldane High School.
Shannon has had some experience tending to a home vegetable garden. This, in addition to wanting to work outside over the summer, sparked her interest in applying for the PGC internship. She was surprised by what Stonecrop had to offer. She was expecting more of an open farm setting but was amazed to find the abundance of flowers and plantings on this site. When asked, what is the most rewarding part of her internship? “The beauty of the gardens. And the knowledge everyone here has knowing the names of all of these plants!” Shannon’s biggest take away from this internship – “I feel like (for this) to be able to work, it’s important to continue planting, giving back to the earth. Most people, my age, don’t know about Stonecrop.” She encourages young people to become more involved and contribute in this way to their community.
Thank you, Shannon, for another great summer of internship work!
The Philipstown Garden Club interviewed and chose Carl Tyce as their intern at Manitoga this summer.
Carl credits his Environmental teacher at O’Neil for encouraging him to pursue this internship. He is planning on attending DeSales University in Pennsylvania with an interest in Biology and Education.
Carl has truly enjoyed the opportunity to spend his summer at Manitoga. Although physical stamina is essential, he has recognized that far more goes into landscaping “not just trimming and weeding but recognizing the lighting and images” as part of the end result of the work. What made the biggest impact? “Making small changes for a big reward. Clearing and seeing the changes. Nature is a blank palette.” Carl’s thoughts about Russel Wright’s vision - “Awe inspiring. It’s a constant to keep up with his vision. Nature changes and so does design.” He leaves with a much greater appreciation for Manitoga and Russel Wright and this experience will play an important role in his career choice.
Carl, thank you and the very best to you in college. Be sure to come back and share with us!
The Philipstown Garden Club placed Sophia Immorlica at Constitution Marsh as their chosen intern this summer. Sophia is a Senior at Haldane High School
Sophia says she started out with an interest in trees, worms and beetles very early on and has developed a greater interest in Environmental Law and marine life. She applied for this scholarship in hopes of doing such work locally. Sophia is pleased that her internship is allowing her the chance to make a difference “where we do work in the Marsh, focusing on controlling invasive species, helps protect our Marsh for future generations.” Her biggest surprise was “the extent of the hands-on work and research.” She leaves with a greater appreciation and respect for Environmental Science and the expanse of this field. She offers this advice for future interns: “Make sure you’re not just focused on getting through the internship but take in what this offers in helping and having an effect on our local environment.”
Thank you, Sophia, for letting us help expand your views and the best of luck with your future endeavors!
Constitution Marsh / September 16, 2017
Completing my internship at Constitution Marsh this summer has been an informative
and invigorating experience. Prior to this summer, I had done environmental work through school programs and a research team that I was a part of. As I go off to college this year, I think that my work this summer will largely influence the role that I want environmental stewardship and awareness to play in my studies.
Overall, my favorite time spent at the marsh was out in the field working on conservation projects. The majority of fieldwork we did was working with Phragmites, an invasive reed that overtakes native cattails. I was able to take part in the management of Phragmites through smothering patches with a geotextile, as well as monitoring vegetation growth in previously treated areas. Also in the field I helped with seining for fish, sediment elevation table monitoring (SET’s), tree growth monitoring, canoe tours, and even an education group.
It was in the field that I felt myself grow the most this summer. A goal that I set for myself at the start of this internship was to learn to identify different plants, birds, and other animals around the marsh. I noticed that I learned how to ID things much faster when in the field, as opposed to researching online or through text. When doing vegetation monitoring I quickly learned the names of the majority of plants in the marsh. Additionally, I found that my fellow interns had a lot of great tips on how to ID both plants and animals.
Overall, my internship this summer has been an extremely positive experience. Even during times where I struggled with something or wasn’t too into a particular project, I always felt like I was learning about and seeing the bigger picture of conservation work. While I learned a lot about specific vegetation and bird species this summer, I feel as though the majority of what I learned what not as specific as plant ID or how to monitor SETs. I have learned the most about why conservation work matters, the big picture of how it is accomplished, and what jobs are available within this field. This was largely in part because of my fellow interns and the rest of
the staff at the marsh. Speaking with everyone throughout the summer and hearing about their previous experiences opened my eyes to the vast diversity of work available in conservation. As I complete my internship I feel as though I have a much better idea of my connection to the environment, and how I want to interact with it going forward.
Highlights (for the newspaper)
● Fieldwork in the marsh
○ Phragmites control, vegetation monitoring, sediments elevation table monitoring
● Interacting with visitors
○ Providing information about the marsh, trails, etc
● Talking with my fellow interns and supervisors about their past experiences and how they became involved with conservation work
● Co-leading canoe tours
Anne Gundeck
Manitoga / October 31, 2016
My love for the outdoors has grown continuously since I was a child. The forest has always been my playground. I knew that I wanted to spend more time outside this summer, and I am so happy that the Philipstown Garden Club placed me at Manitoga. My experience there was superb and I was able to learn so much about the thing that I love the most. Over the past couple months I’ve worked on many different projects. The biggest one was the Killalemy trail/Mary’s Meadow restoration. Here, Russel Wright had fully grown Hemlock and Pine trees that would drapeover the ledge creating a dark, deep forest tone that began when the meadow ended. In 1986, a woolly adelgidaphid infested this area, killing many trees. New trees were planted in May, and one of my jobs was to water them and make sure they were alive and well. It took a little more than an hour to water the whole ledge. By giving the baby trees the nutrients they need, we are restoring Wright’s vision of the area. Another project I was given was the fern steps. On the beginning Morning walk path, hikers pass through what are called the fern steps.
The steps are a line of stepping rocks with ferns on either side. However, instead of stepping on the rocks, some people step on the ferns, causing them to break apart and die. We transplanted ferns from different areas of the property as away to move hikers back on to the rocks. Manitoga was a great experience. The knowledge I’ve gained about landscaping will be very helpful for the years to come. Hands on work is very important while studying the environment. The things I’ve learned serve as a base for more knowledge to come in the future--kind of like how moss is a base for baby plants to grow!Thank you so much everyone at Philipstown Garden Club and Manitoga for making this happen!!
Sophia Carnabuci
Stonecrop / October 31, 2016
I live 15 minutes away from Stonecrop Gardens, but hadn’t visited or even heard of the place before it was recommended to me after my previous internship at Manitoga. I was told that if I thought I had an appreciation of plants before visiting, it wasn’t near what I’d come to appreciate after. No words could be more true. This past summer’s internship at Stonecrop has taught me so much while helping me to further my endless enthusiasm for everything green.
There are different ways that one can experience flora and fauna. From an observer’s perspective, most plants are “pretty” or “cool.” But from the eyes of a horticultural worker, each plant has a role and history to be explored and internalized. I wasn’t just looking without learning, and I also wasn’t just working without learning: Stonecrop gave me in-depth exposure to the intellectual side of botanical work.
Particularly when it came to identification, I gained a host of knowledge through my POD write-ups. After every Plant of the Day I was observing my natural surroundings with a keener eye and a more curious mind, reciting in my head the species and genuses I knew and noting interesting ones I’d wish to research later. In this way I began to internalize an entirely new library of words and images which stimulated further inquisitiveness and education. Essentially, learning at Stonecrop was like a snowball.
The academically stimulating, curious, and creative work also exposed me to the rigors of hard work, which I found quite rewarding and am grateful to have experienced in my pre-professional life. I have found through this internship that I enjoy tangible work where I learn skills, because it makes me feel like I’m actually making a difference with my employment. In just eight weeks, I absorbed a multitude of techniques. I became accustomed to the right way to go about potting a plant: for so long my mother and I were famous for dumping some dirt in the pot, sticking the plant in, and then squishing more dirt around it. To finally understand why potting a plant the correct way can be crucial to the plant’s future in that pot - I was so excited. I also pruned back bushes, made fertilizer so I could feed the greenhouse plants, and collected seed from dried Hibiscus pods. I learned the mechanics behind plant propagation from shrub cuttings, which was also quite a process - cuttings were to be a certain length, with as many potential root-bearing nodes as possible covered in hormone powder. This had to then be transferred to tightly packed, neat rows in perlite.
My biggest, most self-directed project was to design and plant a bed of lettuces among the vegetable plots in the Flower Garden. I absolutely loved the room for creativity this project gave me as I started from scratch with a radial, alternating-texture design, picked out seeds for each row, planted and watered the entire bed, and looked after the seedlings as they grew. A majority of my rows were successful, though a few were disturbed by animals, which required me to return to the seed packets and resow. It was an endeavor which required patience, care, and quite a few hours out in the Flower Garden’s full sun. However, it was incredibly rewarding to witness the growth of seeds that I planted, rather than buying nursery plants and shoving them in the ground.
Another highlight of my experience at Stonecrop was when the full-time interns and I went on a field trip to five different historical gardens along the Hudson. I learned from the trip that visiting a garden after having worked in a garden will never be simple anymore. Instead of allowing myself to feel relaxed in the presence of quiet, calming greenery, my mind was abuzz. I was mentally linking names with images of flowers, while taking in significant historical contexts, as well as architectural elements. Needless to say, I will be visiting gardens much more often in the future, though I may be a bit of a nuisance to any of my companions who may be less enthusiastic about the presence of perhaps a specific type of Hydrangea or Hibiscus.
During my internship at Stonecrop, I was able to fine-tune my interests and ideals: something that is valuable for an adolescent exploring potential career paths. I found I loved learning on the job, just as much as I loved doing the actual work. My relations with the other staff at the garden were enriching, leading me to understand myself as someone who will eagerly work for or with others (thanks Patti for all of your guidance!), but I also value independence and room for creative freedom. These conclusions, all thanks to my summer at Stonecrop, will guide my vocational choices from now on, and for that I cannot be more thankful.
Mariana Silva
