Each spring Schenectady County’s public spaces are transformed. Weeds and brush are cleared and overnight, marigolds, pansies, lilies and sunflowers take their place.
Each year, the Schenectady County Horticulture Education Center grows more than 100,000 flowers, which are given to county agencies and private groups to beautify the neighborhoods and public spaces throughout Schenectady County.
The Schenectady County Horticulture Education Center, or The Green House, is a three-way partnership between the county, Cornell Cooperative Extension and the Schenectady Job Training Agency. Schenectady County provides a portion of the center’s funding and buys the plants that are grown in the greenhouse each year. Cornell provides the center’s management and educational components and the Job Training Agency provides most of the personnel who keep the center running.
The center’s main focus is to grow the 100,000 annuals, which are planted throughout the county each year. This large task is completed because of the workers from the Job Training Agency and through a youth job training initiative made possible by a federal grant from the Department of Labor.
Debora Moran, the center’s director, is one of two full-time employees. `
Having those people is a great help to us. Obviously we couldn’t handle all the work just the two of us,` she said.
Most of the adults who work at the Horticulture Education Center receive assistance from the county and gain job training skills and a reference at the center.
On an average day, between five and 10 workers come through the center, but as many as 20 folks are on hand during the busy spring months, Moran said.
Heather Schaible has been working for the center for a year as part of the Job Training Agency’s program.
`I like working outside and I’m used to this kind of work because my grandfather had a garden when I was younger,` she said.
The Center also works with at-risk youth who have either dropped out of school or recently graduated and are seeking work experience. The program is for youth ages 16 to 21.
`They learn what I call soft skills,` Moran said. `Things like showing up on time, working with others and dressing appropriately.`
Erin Bell, 16, has been working for the center for the past five weeks.
`I like to be outside and it’s nice to get out of the house,` she said. `I’ll probably come back next summer.`
Each spring, local organizations and agencies fill out a form requesting various flowers. In the middle of May, the center holds distribution day where representative from those agencies and organizations come to the center and load their cars with all of their requested flowers, then set off to plant them around the county.
Moran said the best part about working at the Horticulture Education Center is knowing that you are making a difference in the county.
`Our youth and adults can drive around and see the results of their work.
They see that they are making the county more beautiful and that is rewarding to them,` she said.
The Horticulture Education Center takes up 3 acres in Schenectady’s Central Park. The facility was renovated about eight years ago by Schenectady County and now includes 4,000 square feet of greenhouse space with state-of-the-art equipment like sensors that regulate the temperature and soil conditions of the plants and a heating system using hot water tubes that runs underneath the soil beds.
`We have state-of-the-art equipment here just like you would find if you went to work at a real nursery or greenhouse,` Moran said.
In addition to growing flowers to beautify the county, the Horticulture Education Center won a new grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to plant five new gardens for educational purposes. There are five different types of gardens: a meadow garden, wetland garden, woodland garden, xeric or dry garden and a bird and butterfly garden.
The center holds various free classes and demonstrations for the public using the gardens to show what types of plants grow best in certain environments.
The center is open year-round. In the winter the center’s staff is busy planting flowers and working in the greenhouses.
`The greenhouse is a wonderful place in the winter because it’s warm and it smells good,` Moran said. `Often people come in and say they have had enough of winter and want to spend some time in the greenhouse.`
Moran said gardening is a very popular hobby. She said as many as 27 people have attended the center’s gardening workshops. Moran speculated that the expense of travel and perceived danger made people want to make their own spaces as inviting as possible.
`People want to turn their own backyards into their own private oasis,` she said.
The next free class at the Horticulture Education Center is Saturday, Sept. 8 from 10 a.m. to noon and will focus on planting and maintaining a meadow garden.
For information about the Schenectady County Horticulture Education Center, call 372-1622 or visit the Web site at www.cceschenectady.org.
“