One of the first big projects that I was a part of was the work for the new Learning by Leading cut flower garden. The previous Horticulture Enterprise co-leaders had passed down this project before leaving their roles and giving the responsibilities to us. The goal of this garden is to be able to grow cut flowers to use for both plant sales and floral arranging workshops throughout the fall semester. The different cut flower plugs had been planted in the spring and were ready to be transplanted into the raised bed at the Plant Production Facility.

Taking place in the very beginning of the summer, this was the first big project that my co-leader Aubrey ’29 and I had worked on together for our team as a team. We organized a work-bee with all the other LxL Co-leaders (Sage ’29, Ami Maria ’27, Joshua ’29, Estella ’28, Annie ’29, Maya ’27, and Lila ’27) to plant 300+ plugs of different cut flowers in the bed. The organized work-bee saved Aubrey and I a lot of time and effort. What would have taken us days to complete was done in just a couple of hours.

This helped show me the importance of a team and how it is very possible to take on a task as big as this one when you have a group of people to support it. This project helped me develop my horticulture skills and leader ship skills simultaneously. I now understand how gardens are planned, executed, and taken care of, while also building my skills in leading a team of students.