We are thrilled to welcome Austin, the 2024 summer intern, to Zilker Botanical Garden! Austin Vance is an upcoming junior at Texas A&M University, where he is majoring in horticulture with a focus on plant breeding and genetics. Growing up with a deep appreciation for Zilker Botanical Garden, Austin was excited to find the internship opportunity on our website.
Since his start in June, Austin has worked alongside the Garden’s horticulture team gaining hands-on experience in irrigation, weeding, and tree removal. He has also worked closely with the Conservancy’s curator and education director on tree tagging while developing a guide for tree identification.
Austin will close out this internship in mid-August with a presentation on his work at ZBG.
Updated 8/21/24
A special thanks goes out to ZBG’s summer horticulture intern, Austin, for all of his hard work! On Friday, August 16th, 2024, Austin presented to Garden and Conservancy staff along with members of the Garden Club of Austin.
Over the past 10 weeks, Austin worked on accessioning where he catalogued 40 species of woody plants in the Garden, learned the ins and outs of tree trimming, removal, and hedge shaping, and created a “Notable Trees of Zilker Botanical Garden” booklet. Austin worked closely with the PARD horticulture team and our education director over the summer and ended his time with a strong desire to continue studying and working with trees.
When asked about the most frustrating task he had to overcome, Austin shared about learning to use a pull saw and how to get it unstuck from a tree. He also shared that his favorite project was hedge shaping! See if you can spot his cloud-shaped design in the Japanese Garden.
This paid internship is made possible by a generous endowment funded in part by the Garden Club of Austin (TGCoA) in partnership with the Zilker Botanical Garden Conservancy.
