Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Gardeners working in exhibits


As horticulture staff, we get to experience what its like to work in an animals home and beautify their surroundings. We start with contacting zookeepers and letting them know that we would like to get into the exhibits to do work. The morning of our scheduled work day we call zookeepers so they can secure animals and unlock gates for us.



Tasks we usually perform in the exhibit are; pulling toxic weeds to prevent the chance of an animal eating them, mowing, pulling weeds, pruning, planting, trimming and mulching. We finish before 10am so the animals have a chance to get on exhibit for the visitors to view them.


When we do exhibit work its nice to see the animals come out for the first time. Sometimes they seem curious about the changes we made. In the Polar Bear exhibits, after we mow, it is very fragrant, the polar bears seem to really enjoy that too.