Botanical Gardens welcomes local summer intern

Birmingham Botanical Gardens visitors will see a new friendly face this summer with the 2017 Shades Valley Rotary Intern.

John Robert Carter, a Birmingham native and senior at Samford University, was originally interested in health sciences and attended Auburn his freshman year. He later realized those studies — and the class sizes — were not for him and transferred to Samford.

While back in Homewood, Carter picked up a job at Sweet Peas and took an entry horticulture class with Lawrence Davenport, who he credits to piquing his interest in horticulture and botany.

“That’s what really got me interested,” he said. “I just like learning more about how things work and how it all works together in the environment.”

So he took the one remaining horticulture class he found at Samford and applied for the Shades Valley Rotary Internship at the urging of another professor, Elizabeth Dobbins.

Under the paid internship, Carter will be working full-time with other staff members and will be able to attend meetings, events, lectures and field trips with staff. 

While interns will focus on many aspects of the gardens, including plant propagation, greenhouse and nurses production, planting, ground maintenance and arboriculture, Carter also will be able to work on an on-going project of his interest at the gardens. Past interns have used this time to research the propagation of a rare endemic Alabama fern and the effectiveness of planting native trees in local parks.

“I’m just interested in how it [the gardens] runs,” he said. “I’m going to meet a lot of people who know a lot more about this than I do; it’s going to be really interesting.”

Carter also will be working in the different sections within the gardens, such as the Kaul Wildflower Garden, Husley Woods and Japanese Garden, Alabama Woodlands, Iris and Lily Gardens and the greenhouses. While it was hard to pick a favorite, he said he really enjoys the Japanese Garden in the southern corner of the gardens. 

“It’s just gorgeous,” he said. “You get to see all these [elements] that are super interesting.”

He’s also looking forward to working more with the “boggish” section of the gardens, which resemble wetlands.

“They’re also really important. I would like to learn how everything interacts for that,” Carter said.

Really, Carter said he’s just interested in learning everything he can in the few months that he will be working there. 

“I’m hoping I can learn more about how they work it all [at the gardens], like how they organize it, you know, decide what should go where, why things are set up the way they are,” he said. “It’s an enjoyable place and … it’s a fantastic way to get myself further into the field.”

And his favorite plant? He narrowed down his choices to pitcher plants, but joked he doesn’t really pick just one because “that’s rude to the plants.”