My name is Roamie Thatcher and I am the Spring Nursery Intern at Sutro Stewards. I am currently a sophomore in the horticultural program at City College of San Francisco. I am working toward an AA degree in Nursery and Garden Center Operations. I hope to one day open my own wholesale nursery that specializes in unique and edible plants.
I was first introduced to horticulture when I was seven years old and planted a fairy garden in my backyard. At the time I was more interested in fairies than I was in gardening. I started to spend every weekend tending to my garden and I started to develop an appreciation for plants. In high school I began volunteering in the nursery at the San Francisco Botanical Garden. I have been volunteering at the Botanical Garden every weekend for four years. On my first day of volunteering the associate curator took me into the greenhouse and showed me how to start cuttings. From that point on, I became deeply interested in learning more about plant propagation. I have worked under the curator emeritus, Don Mahoney, and from him I have learned more about seed propagation and plant biology. I have been working with Don for the past two years.
Working at the Sutro Stewards Nursery has helped me learn more about seed propagation techniques and cleaning. I have collected seed from mature plants in the nursery, cleaned, treated and started the seed. I have been learning about fern propagation from spore and the fern life cycle. I have also been learning a lot about native plants (Bay Area native plants) and how to identify plants. I also help update a seed inventory of all the seeds sown in the nursery.