Landscape Summer Intern
sustainable horticulture, history, museum education, agriculture, or landscaping. The Landscape Assistant Intern will gain hands-on experience with a variety of gardening styles and techniques used in the many historic gardens at Strawbery Banke Museum. The primary expectation of the Landscape Assistant Intern is to maintain the gardens.
The Landscape Assistant Intern will work independently and alongside staff and volunteers in all of our gardens. The intern will have the chance to learn directly from the Museum’s Manager of Landscape Operations, who will be the intern’s direct supervisor.
More information about our historic gardens at SBM can be found at: http://www.strawberybanke.org/gardens/historic-gardens.cfm
What you will learn
- Applied sustainable gardening techniques (including: pruning, soil health management, hardscape maintenance, plant health care)
- Plant identification
- Garden design
- Heirloom garden/plant care
- Portsmouth history
- Nonprofit museum operations
Duties and Responsibilities
- Assist in caring for all museum gardens
- Weed control
- Bed preparation
- Pruning perennial and annual plants
- Planting
- Interacting with visitors
- Minor woodworking and painting of garden features
- Mowing and weed whacking
- Maintenance of walks
Qualifications
- Candidates must be enrolled as an undergraduate or graduate student in good standing at an academic institution in order to be eligible for this internship program.
- Prior gardening, landscaping, farming, or related field experience preferred.
- Excellent written, oral, and communication/presentation skills required
- Enrolled as an undergraduate or graduate level student in horticulture, agriculture, or a related field preferred.
Physical Requirements:
- The candidate must be physically fit. Work entails moving around the 9-acre site, for extended periods of time outdoors in all weather conditions. Must be able to bend, stoop, and kneel, and must be able to lift up to 50 lbs throughout the day.
Housing provided by Strawbery Banke Museum
Optional on-site housing is provided in Hough House for interns who need housing, contingent upon COVID-19 restrictions at the time of the internship. In the event that shared on-site housing is not deemed safe for Summer 2022, the intern will be expected to commute or provide their own housing. Work on-site is conducted safely following strict safety guidelines such as masks and physical distancing.
Hough House is open to all interns regardless of sex or age. While the common areas in Hough are co-ed, the bedrooms are single-sex based on the gender with which each intern identifies, and interns should expect to have a roommate for the duration of their stay in Hough House.