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Meet Anna Louise Carragee. Anna is a Master of Environmental Horticulture student in the University of Washington’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, and she will start her second year this fall. She has 3 part-time positions at UW Botanic Gardens: Greenhouse Assistant, Nursery Manager for the Society for Ecological Restoration – UW Chapter’s Native Plant Nursery (housed at the Center for Urban Horticulture), and a short-term position to support the City’s Seattle reLeaf program to help re-inventory and evaluate the health of street trees planted with the Trees for Neighborhoods project.
Anna is from Wayne, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia. She moved to Seattle to start school at UW last year. She was attracted to Seattle since it is a large city with excellent access to the mountains. Anna likes to hike, bike, contra dance, attend concerts, care for her indoor plants, and read.
Anna attended the University of Vermont and studied Ecology for her undergraduate degree. Her favorite class was dendrology, which was life-changing because she suddenly saw all the trees in much more detail and gained greater understanding of the ecology of the northern hardwood forests of Vermont. Anna’s favorite class at UW so far is Plant Ecophysiology, which she also found to be life-changing. Her understanding of plants increased exponentially in ten very quick weeks.
As a student in the Master of Environmental Horticulture program, Anna has many classes in the greenhouse and in the Douglas Research Conservatory at the Center for Urban Horticulture. She has had the chance to meet the staff of UW Botanic Gardens and be involved in really interesting projects this summer.
On a typical day, Anna waters the potted plants in Merrill Hall and maintains the plants in the research yard near the hoophouses. When working for Seattle reLeaf, she drives all over the city surveying street trees planted in the last 3-5 years. Her favorite part of her jobs is watching plants put on new growth and seeing the colors of the Soest garden change over the season.
Anna’s favorite part of the UW Botanic Gardens gardens is the New Zealand forest at the Washington Park Arboretum; she studied in New Zealand and recalls the fun she had there.
Her favorite tree is the tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) because she loves large shade trees that also have “showy” flowers. Also, growing up in Pennsylvania she had many tall tulip poplars in her backyard that shed flowers and seeds — which provided hours of amusement for Anna and her friends!
