Keene State College’s greenhouse is located on the fourth floor of the Putnam Science Center and serves as a controlled environment where plants can grow.
Heidi Lauricella, Keene State’s public health and safety laboratory technician, said she volunteered to take over the greenhouse after its previous manager took on another job.
Lauricella dove into the project without knowing anything about plants and said that she does “a lot of googling” to help her out. She said she uses an app called Picture This, where users can snap a picture of a plant and learn its name and ways to care for it. Lauricella said she likes to sneak up to the greenhouse from time to time, but often gets caught up in her own work.
The nature of the greenhouse results in sun beaming on the plants, which can sometimes mean they are receiving too much sun. In the greenhouse right now, there is one plant called the “Mother of Thousands” that grows baby plants on other baby plants. Lauricella will take the ones that fall off and plant them again so they can grow into another. She plans to eventually repot them into little pots so that students, staff and faculty are able to take them.
Speaking on what the greenhouse provides for the campus, Lauricella said, “I rearranged the tables, and there’s this workshop area for four people. I arranged it the best I could given the size of the tables so that faculty can come up here and easily do a class.”
“It’s used in academic classes, but it could be used more,” Lauricella continued. “I have been reaching out to other places like the Wellness Center, just to let people know that this space is here and is not always used for classes or student research. People could have a workshop up here. I’m trying to get the word out that it’s here and usable.”
Lauricella said that students are welcome to bring their own plants to the greenhouse for rehabilitation. She said, “We have a lot of plants in public places, and some of them are just looking a little sad. You can slice it down and propagate it, like this is sort of the plant hospital. You bring it here for several months, let us regrow it, and then we can get it back out there.”
Lauricella said she has goals for the greenhouse going forward, but there have been some setbacks. “A big piece of my goal was that this is a greenhouse that is heated and has a sprinkler system with a chain,” Lauricella said. “You pull the chain and open the roof windows. All those things have to keep going, or else they will seize up, and then when someone is ready to use the greenhouse, it will not be available because none of those things will work.”
Lauricella said she has a mission to keep the greenhouse active in the community. “I’m going to keep everything going and keep talking about this place and then someone is going to be like, oh my gosh I want to do this here,” she said. “And I’m like, you can, it’s all set for you.”
Lauricella said she wants the Keene State Community to know that she doesn’t know much about plants, but she’s happy to have others join her on the adventure.
Arianna Young can be contacted at
ayoung@kscequinox.com
