Monday, May 23, 2011

First day at the gardens...

I made it through my first day at the Denver Botanic Gardens!!!  I'll be here for 12 weeks working on the DBG's seed herbarium, and I must say that we have a LOT of work to do.  Although today was rather overwhelming (as all first days are), I am extremely excited about this internship.  So here's what happened today:

I arrived at the Waring House (administrative building for DBG) at 8:00am to meet fellow interns for a morning of paperwork which also included multiple rounds of introductions as each intern joined the group outside of the building.  :)  After an hour or two of paperwork, we toured the gardens and all necessary behind-the-scenes facilities we would need to know about.  We were endowed with our glorious crew T-shirts that would make it "official" in my brain that I was on the DBG crew!

The logo on my shirt that makes me feel oh-so cool...

We had a nice welcome lunch with many of the staff members we were going to work with, and everyone is so friendly and fun!  They all seem down-to-earth (excuse the pun) and will all be great mentors to get to know.  After a few more hours of orientation, I got to spend time with my own mentor, Katy.

Katy is AWESOME!  And her boss, Mike, is a hoot.  I am so grateful for the people I've been chosen to work for, and the projects I've been assigned are going to stretch my little horticulture muscles.  I will be leaving this internship with a LOT more knowledge than I came in with.  What exactly have I been assigned to?  Well, I am helping with propagation for the gardens which includes many native and unique specimens.  Let's just say that I'm not germinating petunias and snapdragons all day.  :)  Also, I am going to help organize and establish DBG's seed herbarium, which is a large collection of different types of seeds collected locally as well as from different parts of the world.  I am going to learn a LOT of scientific names.  

All in all, today gave me a lot to be excited about for this summer!

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