As a part of our Floriculture curriculum this semester, we are each invited to shadow one of the growers here are Longwood Gardens. This serves as an insightful opportunity to learn the ins and outs of growing various crops which our designated growers are experts in.  We meet with our growers for about an hour on a weekly basis to learn different aspects of their job during the months of January to March. We are shown hands on methods to different production routines the growers preform on their crops. From here, we will present such methods to our classmates on a chosen crop that our grower produces.  The Grower Mentor Project will help us to better understand the hard work that goes into producing the magic of the displays at Longwood.

For this assignment, I was paired with Amanda Galano, who works with Longwood’s stock of Chrysanthemums at the Nursery. Before touching on what Amanda has been teaching me, here is a little bit about her background.

Amanda began her love of horticulture through experiences with propagation with a friend who was also fond of plants. It’s a funny story actually; Amanda was over her friends’ house in her home-area of Long Island, New York, when one of her friends plants was accidently knocked over by her puppy. A piece of the plant, more specifically, a type of Plectranthus was broken off.  Amanda’s friend kindly asked if she wanted this piece of plant! From here she described how she can stick it in some soil where the start of propagation would take over, and over a little bit of time and some love and care, Amanda would have a plant of her own. This fascinated Amanda and sparked curiosity in horticulture. Leading up to the start of her passion, Amanda worked for her family’s dry cleaning business and while carrying a love for art. She achieved a degree in Fine Art at Boston University and later spent some time working as an Insurance Adjuster.  In 2011, she decided to make some changes and refocus her life on her passion for horticulture.  

Amanda attended a two-year program at SUNY, majoring in Ornamental Horticulture. While at SUNY,  she learned about the aspect of Public Horticulture Management. It was from this class that she found out about Longwood. After researching programs at Longwood, that she learned about the Graduate Program opportunity. Although Amanda did not get into the Graduate Program, Longwood was more than impressed with her interview and they offered her a yearlong internship. During this time, she was able to rotate through numerous areas of Longwood.  Her first rotation was in plant production, and she instantly fell in love. From her internship, Amanda seamlessly transitioned into working as a seasonal employee at the Nursery where she worked under Yoko Arakawa. With Yoko, she learned about her display mum crops, including 1,000 Bloom, 100 Cultivar, small domes, half domes, fan shapes, pom poms and pagodas- which involve grafting chrysanthemums onto Artemisia rootstock.

From here, she was hired on as a Part time employee, continuing her focus on production and more indepth learning about Chrysanthemum production from Yoko. Since May of 2016, Amanda was hired as full time employee. She is currently working with over 220 different cultivars of Chrysanthemums, testing to see which cultivars produce the best form and flowers. Her usual duties for the care of the Chrysanthemums includes, watering, pinching back mums, taking cuttings to start new plants, forcing or delaying flowering, pest management, as well as overall general maintenance of the plants.

You can enjoy Amanda’s hard work at Longwood especially during the Chrysanthemum Festival in early fall!

Amanda in the Nursery.

Articles and photos by Kate Coppola, Professional Gardener Class of 2017