SOPH Student Introduces Composting at Long Island Site

Posted in Learning Experiences on June 16 2009, by Plant Talk

Peter Couchman is a second-year student in the School of Professional Horticulture. He is doing his required six-month internship at the five-acre Sands Light estate, home to the Sands Point Lighthouse in Port Washington on the north shore of Long Island. The School’s internship program is designed to allow students to synthesize and apply what they’ve learned, expand their skills by providing further training in a professional horticulture venue, and expose them to the multiple facets of the field. Peter sent us this report.

One condition of my accepting this internship was to introduce a composting program: Prior to my arrival, there was no composting on the estate. All garden waste was placed in the municipal garbage.

Since my time here, I’m happy to say, I have researched, installed, and implemented a composting facility. With limited space for a compost area, it was important that the facility not be unsightly as it would be close to the house. For that reason, I chose to use compost tumblers, which keep the compost out of sight and are easy to turn and oxygenate. They also keep out wild animals such as the ever-present raccoons. To facilitate the composting process, I established a new wood-chipping area to create a good carbon source of sawdust and woodchips. The main nitrogen source comes from the collected clippings from each week’s lawn mowing. Recently, I began collecting kitchen waste such as eggshells and vegetable and fruit scraps for composting as well. Through composting, we have decreased the amount of waste we place in the municipal garbage by up to 30 percent.

In addition, I designed and installed a new bog garden within an existing pond and waterfall feature. I was able to incorporate Sarracenia leucophylla ‘Tarnok’, Sarracenia purpurea, Iris fulva, Mimulus sp., Pinguicula primuliflora, and other Pinguicula species that the owner already had. We will be adding additional carnivorous and bog plants in the next couple of weeks.

Day to day activities at this estate are similar to those of the Outdoor Gardens staff at NYBG: planting, pruning, invasives removal, integrated pest management, greenhouse management, and one additional—beach erosion control, as the property is on Long Island Sound. The estate has many unique specimens, especially variegated cultivars of popular landscape plants such as Liquidambar styraciflua ‘Silver King’ (a variegated sweetgum), Ficus aspera (a variegated fig), and many variegated conifers such as Pinus wallichiana ‘Zebrina’.

I’ve also developed new skills in the pruning of ornamental trees and shrubs. Due to continual salt spray from Long Island Sound over the winter months, there is often a lot of dieback, and each early spring requires a good deal of pruning to encourage healthy new growth and good form. I am also mastering soil mixing, having developed the soil medium for the bog garden (two parts peat moss, one part long-fiber sphagnum moss, one part sand).

Applications for the next new class of the School of Professional Horticulture are being accepted through August 15.