Missouri Botanical Garden

Horticulture Education and Training

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Former Interns...Where are they now?

Julie Hess

Senior Horticulturist
22 years at Missouri Botanical Garden

MBG Hort Intern - Spring-Summer, 1988

Julie was switching from a medical background to horticulture, and so was really starting at ground zero. She asked a lot of different kinds of questions ("How do you hold these pruners?") and she got good sound answers based on the experiences of those teaching her. She must have enjoyed working in horticulture because she came back to help during the summer of 1989 and was hired permanently in the fall.

Julie learned from her internship and throughout her career that horticulture is not a stagnant field. It is one in which you constantly learn. There are new plant introductions, technological advances, and new products to be tried every year. Julie says that even though the seasons seem to march endlessly on, you can always find something new to delight in, if you try. She believes you can not learn horticulture from reading a book, or working on the computer. According to Julie, you just have to go out there and DO IT! It's a hands-on, get-dirty, sweat-like-a-pig, and go-home-exhausted type of educational work experience that will leave no doubt in your mind whether or not this is the job for you. And if you decide it is, there is no better group of people to learn it from than the Horticulture staff at Missouri Botanical Garden.

Julie has been with the Garden 22 years now and is the horticulturist in charge of the President's Residence, comprising six acres of gardens and grounds.

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