Botany and
Nature
I have always loved plants. As a child weaving mats from
broom sedge from the adjacent field, I discovered 4-leaf
clovers up to 7-leaf clovers (honest! And 5-leaf clovers
are bad luck, did you know?) in our yard. Must've been
so-ome fertilizer my father used!
Pressing autumn leaves between sheets of wax paper for
their beauty and identification was an autumnal ritual for
me. Yellow Gingko, fiery
In college (University of Maryland) I majored in Biology, minoring in Botany and Zoology. One of my favorite memories is of wildflower-collecting expeditions with my friend Paula. We went everywhere. And Paula taught me how to birdwatch as we collected our precious samples.
Then I became a Forest Ranger for the State of Maryland in 1973. Most of what I needed to know about trees came from my 10-15 tree-trimming crews and their foremen, the other Rangers, and my own eyes as I supervised ditch-digging crews for gas mains and water mains. Much of this knowledge has never been written down. I treasure this expert knowledge highly.
I graduated to learning all I could about every plant in the Maryland woodlands. Many became like dear friends, welcome heralds of spring: Spice-Bush, Jack-In-The-Pulpit, Skunk Cabbage (ever dissect one of these? That was our first lab in Plant Taxonomy 101.), Wild
Do you know what the botanical definition of a weed is? It's a plant that is growing where it is not wanted.
I want to use my plant knowledge to help others succeed. This is why I retired and became an advertising copywriter. Plant professionals are honest, very hard-working people who practice an art that is seldom
