Window Garden Wednesdays: Ann Rafalko

Posted in Window Garden Wednesday on February 29 2012, by Matt Newman

Working alongside some of the world’s most talented and knowledgeable botanists tends to relate directly to the number of office plants that find homes on desks and window sills. Window Garden Wednesday exists to acquaint our readers with some of the folks who are often too busy in the field, lab, or conference room to spend time lurking on social media sites. (That’s our job.)

We continue the revival of Window Garden Wednesdays with a collection close to my desk. Not that I’m allowed to touch it. You see, this is the window garden of one Ann Rafalko, imperious (I jest) Director of Online Content for The New York Botanical Garden. She also happens to be my boss (or foreman, or warden–it’s really a matter of imagination paired with the general mood of the room on any given weekday).

Our humble copse of potted things here in Creative Services may not be particularly exotic or flamboyant, but it suits us just fine. So I’ll turn it over to Ann to explain just what it is we have lurking on the sill, how it got there, and perhaps the handful of miracles that must have fallen on our grim corner of the Library Building to keep these zombies of vegetation hovering in the realm of healthy.

Who are you and what do you do at the Garden?

My name is Ann Rafalko and I am the Director of Online Content at the Garden. That means I oversee all visitor-based webpages on nybg.org, plus I manage the Garden’s social media initiatives, including Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and Pinterest.

What kind of plants do you have in your windowsill garden?

I have a small cactus garden, a maidenhair fern, some parsley, a few leggy tomato plants, a cyclamen, and two other plants I don’t know the name of that I rescued after a photo shoot (they, and the cyclamen are not in this picture). Also I have a timelapse camera that you see perched over the cactus garden. I have been testing it out to see how it works for watching plants grow.

Any good stories about where the plants come from?

I grew my little cacti from seed! As a wedding present, my husband’s uncle gave us a huge packet of seeds of all types, so that our love might “blossom.” (Yes, I know…) Amongst them was a packet of cactus seeds, and I thought to myself, “You can’t possibly grow cacti from seeds!” I asked a few of our horticulturists, and they confirmed that it is indeed possible. So I gave it a go, and lo and behold, I now have a little cactus garden. I think growing cacti from seeds would be an absolutely excellent activity to do with kids. It’s very satisfying. They’re so tiny and cute, and from the very first, they look exactly like a cactus.

Learned any good windowsill gardening tips while working at the Garden?

I think the most important thing about plants that I have learned in my tenure at the Garden is that plants are much less delicate than we give them credit for. Since I have been here I have seen every type of weather I could possibly imagine: a year’s worth of rain in August, a blizzard in October, drought, heat, cold. You name it, and our plants have—for the most part—survived it. I have learned to stop freaking out if a plant looks a bit droopy or sad, to stop worrying so much. It has made my home garden a much more productive place!

What’s your favorite thing about working at the Garden?

My favorite thing about working at the Garden is working at the Garden. After years of working in Manhattan, it is such an amazing change. I say I have the prettiest office in New York City (though not the prettiest cubicle), and I’m not lying. The ability to be sitting here and say to myself, “You know what? I think it’s time to go outside and snap pictures of what’s blooming,” is really special.