Internships

The department facilitates a supportive internship program that is considered by students and industry as excellent. Undergraduate students are strongly encouraged to take advantage of the diverse array of internships available to them. Internships vary in length from three to twelve months and provide students with valuable work experience, income, and college credit. Students enrolled in an internship complete a course, Horticulture 391. In their curriculum, students may take two credits of internship toward their horticulture credits and an additional 2 credits toward their 128.5 credits for graduation. Students are placed in internships in Iowa and around the country each summer and during the academic year as needed. Students have participated in internships at the Chicago Botanic Garden, Longwood Gardens, ISU Reiman Gardens, Augusta National Golf Club, Epcot Center, NASA, and at a wide variety of other important and challenging businesses and organizations. Our students compete effectively for national internships. We have also had students who have completed internships in foreign counties. For example, students studied in turf internships in both Scotland and Ireland in recent years and we have placed greenhouse and nursery students in The Netherlands, England, and Italy.

Department of Horticulture Internship Experiences.

Featuring: Justus Moody

Interned at Plant Delights
Raleigh, N. Carolina
February through August, 2007

I recently completed my 6 month internship at Plant Delights Nursery in Raleigh, NC. Plant Delights is a mail order nursery growing unusual and hard to find perennials. Plant Delights is also home to Juniper Level Botanical Garden, a must see if you are in the area, a six acre garden featuring 17,000 unique plants.	Me by the Juniper Level Botanic Gardens sign which is funded by PDN
For most of the first 6 weeks I assisted the Facilities Coordinator maintain and repair the grounds and greenhouses. The following week I worked with the Grower. The next seven weeks were spent with the Stocking Supervisor getting through the busiest shipping season. The remainder of the internship was spent in the Propagation Department.	Assisting a customer in the nursery
During my internship I learned how to repair the many components of the greenhouses, especially irrigation, and different pieces of equipment. I cut back and deadheaded many plants saw when to do this and how long it would take each species to recover. One of the more difficult parts of my internship was selecting the best available plants to be shipped to customers or in some cases recognizing that there were no plants of a particular species large and healthy enough to be shipped. My favorite part of the internship was in the Propagation Department. I learned how to propagate many species from cuttings, divisions, and seeds.