Cooper Christensen – My Leadership Project

lake helen with two sculptures and green plants and water plants

Hello, Cooper Christensen here again! Today I’m going to talk about what my team and I work on every week to keep Reiman Gardens looking spiffy. To start with, my team of three always has opening activities. This includes watering all the annuals and newly planted perennials, filling up fountains, backpack blowing paths, and filling up gator bags around newly planted trees with water.

One of my favorite things we do every week is get in Lake Helen to clean up and make sure everything looks nice. For example, the lotus and cat tails in the lake have a bad habit of spreading by their roots. To make sure that everyone can see the lake from every angle and that the other plants aren’t crowded out the lake team cuts them down and removes them for about 2-4 hours each week.

This picture shows one of the designs I’ve made for my leadership project. To upkeep this design I make sure that none of the tie downs break and floating plants travel away. As well as removing the bad looking brown algae from around the statues and in the non-floating plant beds that are placed in the lake.

There are a lot of interesting tidbits about this design and the plants that go in them that I would be proud to share with anyone who asks! I look forward to seeing you there!

Cooper Christensen Outdoor Horticulture Intern