Summary
M. R. Gardens is the site of a sustainable plant nursery that primarily grows perennials native to the Southeast. We also offer educational opportunities and have a tiny house that is typically used as a farm-stay/short-term vacation rental. We may be able to offer it as temporary residence for the Caretaker though March 2025 if housing in Asheville is needed.
Initial responsibilities primarily entail helping to caretake a two-acre ecological landscape, which has various native flower gardens, fruit trees and meadows. In addition to maintenance and installation, the Caretaker documents (i.e. writes, photographs and/or quickly sketches) descriptions of each garden, the intentions for each bed, and instructions for maintenance, so that future gardeners know how to care for each of the gardens and students can easily learn from them. The Caretaker is given specific instructions initially, but if they work at the farm long enough (amount of months/years varies depending on experience level), they can give input to the design and development of the gardens.
After the first few months, the Caretaker should be acclimated to our farm and nursery enough to increase their work hours and pick up other responsibilities within our diverse business. It’s important that everyone on payroll participates in tasks that immediately increases farm income. Depending on their skills, they might be: assisting with sales of plants; marketing and advertising; making plant deliveries; cleaning the vacation rental; or creating and implementing educational programming. If they have more than three years of experience with seed propagation of native flowers, they might help with seeding flats, greenhouse record-keeping, and fulfilling customer orders. Almost all of the work entails a large amount of details, so they need to demonstrate that they have the means to be able to retain information, including organization, note-taking and reiterating our instructions.
Importance of the Caretaker
Keeping a steady routine of garden management is critical to our business on many levels. The Caretaker is helping us to:
- Provide demonstration gardens to customers and test out plant placements prior to trying them in design clients’ yards;
- Save our investment in plants we installed in the landscape before they get overtaken by more assertive vegetation;
- Discourage a costly buildup of aggressive plants in the landscape’s seedbank;
- Encourage biodiversity, making sure less competitive and ecological valuable vegetation survive;
- Allow us to move forward on expanding educational programming, which we are unable to do until the gardens are in manageable condition; and
- Create a welcoming atmosphere to Airbnb guests, customers, neighbors, workers and the residents of the property. When the gardens are well-maintained, they inspire a motivating and hopeful atmosphere, so we can move forward with clear heads.
Warnings and Considerations
While we always prioritize health, well-being and safety at this farm, please note that most beginner-level gardeners—or even experienced gardeners who are not used to ecological landscaping—consider the tasks and the environment to be quite harsh at times. While we have a beautiful setting (that looks very different each season), the Caretaker is climbing through meadows and up steep slopes; occasionally picking up heavy material and pushing full wheelbarrows; as well as bending, squatting or kneeling for extended periods of time. Removal of invasive vegetation is one of the tasks to be completed; as well as duties that some consider monotonous and repetitive, such as washing plant containers. Potential nuisances include biting ants, poison ivy (only on certain portions of the property), stinging nettle, and bee/wasp stings. The Caretaker must also keep an eye out for more dangerous situations, which are rare but possible, such as black bear and poisonous spider sightings. Most importantly: Please keep in mind that our farm can be quite hot in summer. While we adjust our work hours accordingly, it’s important the Caretaker knows how to work in the heat. Even people who think they don’t have a problem with the heat can occasionally have issues with it at this farm.
The ideal candidate is motivated by the love for healthy ecosystems; an enjoyment of physical work; a continual/unquenchable curiosity; a belief in the business and our vision here; and positive customer and co-worker interactions. They appreciate occasionally working by themselves. They adore working in natural settings, almost as if this landscape is their childhood sandbox. They are optimistic yet also realistic, and enjoy routines and repetitive tasks.
A note about our philosophy on tools: Please keep in mind that the M. R. Gardens owner was initially inspired 25 years ago by indigenous farming techniques, and for many years kept a low reliance on machines to care for the landscape. Since then, the landscape has evolved such that some areas might be best maintained with electric or propane-powered tools such as weedeaters and flame weeders. So if powered tools are an interest of the Caretaker’s, they would add a needed element to the farm. Yet we’d still advise them how to maintain areas with simple hand tools in case the situation merits that. Our fallback is to rely on many hands; avoid the cost of machine maintenance and the loud noise it adds to the neighborhood; and encourage the love of work rather than avoidance of it. Typically the answer lies in proper planning, sufficient breaks, skillful body position, and the constant attention to posture while working.
Compensation
We are currently offering two options for pay.
Option 1: If the Caretaker has a residence in the Asheville area, we can initially pay between $20 to 25 an hour for approximately five hours of work a week, preferably Friday afternoons, although some of the documentation about the gardens may be completed at their home on their own schedule. We expect hours to increase to nearly a full-time situation within the next couple of years if they are able to be involved in all aspects of the business.
Option 2: If the Caretaker is seeking housing in the area, as of November 15, 2024, we are in a unique situation to offer our on-site tiny house as a residence through March 2025 (including all utilities: water, power, Internet, trash service, as well as assistance with tiny house cleaning/upkeep and some basic living supplies). We estimate the work exchange to be 15 to 20 hours a week. The tiny house, which is typically fully booked on Airbnb, has very few reservations from now until April while our region recovers from Hurricane Helene. Living at the same place as your workplace can potentially be tricky, so we can only consider applicants with maturity, excellent communication skills, an understanding of boundaries, and the highest level of respect for co-workers and neighbors. A security deposit of $950 is required. In March, we can discuss next steps for this position. We hope they will have secured housing in or near Asheville by that time, although living on the property in the future may also be an option.
Duties
1. Gardening, which includes:
- Snipping back perennials, keeping in mind timing based on both aesthetics and wildlife value;
- Weeding while considering growth habits of all the plants in the bed;
- Sheering vegetation and controlling comfrey;
- Installing plants;
- On occasion: mulching, spreading rocks, and digging swales/trenches.
2. Creating garden descriptions and associated instructions that are understandable and repeatable to others who might do similar work here in the future;
3. Completing other agreed-upon responsibilities related to increasing farm income. Duties are negotiable based on experience. Helpful skills include cleaning, marketing/advertising, teaching and plant propagating.
Qualifications and Requirements
While we don’t expect physical labor to extend beyond more than five hours a week initially (and we have other helpers involved with garden maintenance), it’s important that you have worked at least two years in situations that require manual labor 40 hours a week. This experience likely gave you the ability to take care of yourself when you’re constantly physically active; as well as the knowledge of how to perform at your best in unsavory conditions such as heat; and an understanding of your limitations and ability to communicate them. It’s helpful if you have camped for extended periods, preferably in the backcountry, so that you are acclimated to continually being in natural areas.
The bulk of the gardening is managing the interactions between various plants, so it’s important that the Caretaker can identify most plants that commonly emerge in our area, especially the ones that are considered weedy; as well asmost of the plants that we sell at our nursery. (Refer to www.nativeplantsasheville.com). Experience with identifying and removing well-known exotic vegetation is very helpful.
Candidate should have:
- A minimum of three full years gardening in the Southeastern US region.
- A background in both ecology and horticulture. We balance these philosophies equally, so it’s important to understand both of them and realize that there may not be one right way to do everything. The important part is be able to listen to our rationale and implement accordingly. An Associate’s level Horticultural Certificate or equivalent is preferred, as well as a Bachelor’s level education in ecology or related field.
- At least some sort of experience communicating designs and/or garden installation/maintenance tasks to others is helpful.
- Experience with light carpentry is helpful.
- Experience with or knowledge about fruit tree pruning is helpful.
- Respect of varying skill levels and learning styles, especially when working with customers, co-workers and students. If someone doesn’t know something, that probably means they were spending their time learning something else and, to a large extent, it reflects little on their capabilities. As long as the effort and diligence are there, that’s usually all that matters.
- An appreciation of the importance of mastering the basics and establishing a firm foundation before focusing on advanced techniques.
- The ability to work independently after given precise instructions.
- Excellent communication skills; is a team player; has the capacity to understand others’ needs; is emotionally mature; has the ability to listen; can retain information; and can stay in the present.
- Good time management skills and an excellent track record of reliability.
- The ability to internally manage their overwhelm when there’s lots to do in a large, diverse landscape, which some beginners may consider complicated.
- Awareness of or an (informal) education in neurodiversity in the workplace.
- A pesticide license is helpful. While we have an organic nursery and our landscape is also maintained 99.9% organically, we do stump spray particularly troublesome invasive plants such as Porcelain Berry.
Be sure to read the full job description at https://www.nativeplantsasheville.com/job-opening-november-15-2024
