What was your path to working at the greenhouse?
Many years ago, I was working as a freelancer organizing live events. Around that time, I moved close to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I received a membership there as a gift and started going in my free time. I fell in love with the Bonsai trees, which are very lovely. They have one of the nation’s best and oldest collections. I was also doing a lot of hiking at that time. I was gaining a growing appreciation for nature, which has been an important part of my life.
Due to the nature of my job, I was able to go a lot during the day. I would run into the curator of the Bonsai collection at the time, Julian Velasco, and we became friendly. After some time, I asked him if he wanted a volunteer, thinking that it would be a one-time thing. I ended up volunteering almost every Wednesday and Friday for about 3 years. During my volunteering, it became pretty clear that I wanted to change what I did professionally and work with plants.
I decided that I would go the horticultural route so I could work with plants more directly, versus studying plant science. I became an intern at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for a position working in propagation, which meant I worked in the greenhouses. Between working with the Bonsai and helping to take care of all the greenhouses, I found a love for that type of horticulture. I later worked a couple of other jobs in horticulture and fortunately this position at Barnard opened up. There are not many conservatory greenhouses in NYC, so I feel very lucky to be able to work here.
Can you tell me more about the greenhouse here at Barnard?
The greenhouse is largely a conservatory of tropical, subtropical, arid, and Mediterranean plants. A conservatory is a type of living museum; a zoo would be another common example. It is “curated” in the sense that we select what we have here and how we display it, based on a number of different factors: things of botanical interest, things of human interest, plants that are rare, and plants that are very common. Some of the best plants we have here are quite common plants. You sort of notice things you might be more familiar with in a different context.
As far as our research, we work closely with our faculty director, Professor Hilary Callahan, with the faculty at Columbia’s E3B along, and with folk at Lamont. Our role is to provide them a space where they can do plant research. We generally work most directly with the graduate students who are working in the lab of these faculty researchers.
Other than that, the greenhouse is a community space on campus. We sort of think of ourselves as one of the original “centers” at Barnard, along with the library, etc. It's a place where people from a wide range of disciplines come; it's a place where people come socially; it's a place where people come just to have refuge.
What does your role entail?
A big part of my job is making sure that all of the plants are healthy and that they are displayed in a way that is conducive to people having a worthwhile experience when they come visit. We are available to the entire Barnard and Columbia campus. We have classes of all different kinds coming in to look at the plants, learn about some of their histories, learn about their botany, etc. We have classes that come in to draw the plants. We have classes that come purely for inspiration and as a space for meditation. Making sure that people can leave with a valuable experience is a big part of the job.
I also maintain the physical structure of the greenhouse and make sure that all its moving parts work properly and often work very closely with the Barnard facilities department, who do an amazing job of helping us maintain the space. The best part of my job is working with our crew of student workers. A good part of what I do is managing them and helping them learn how to take care of the greenhouse. They do the overwhelming majority of the hard work here, from scrubbing floors and making sure everything stays clean to watering the plants everyday and a host of other things in order to keep the plants healthy. They deserve the majority of the credit for keeping this place functioning. It really is a pleasure and a privilege to work with them.
Working with the students day to day, I get to see things with fresh eyes. I learn so much from them and from their perspective. It keeps things interesting and it really fuels my desire to make this place as great as it can be; I want to offer the community something that they can be proud of and get as much out of as possible.
What is the biggest event at the greenhouse?
We do have times when a particular plant flowers, like our corpse plant or our jade vine; and it really is something worth stopping whatever you are doing to come and bear witness to. On a lot of levels, those megaflora, those big plants, those very wild, kind of fascinating plants have a great effect.
What is something you wish the students knew about the greenhouse?
That this greenhouse is here for them. We do have our weekly open hours but students are always free to reach out and schedule a time to visit, whether it is because they just want to walk around or because they have some kind of project in mind that they want to incorporate the greenhouse into. I think people actually do not know that when we have open hours, they are free to come up here and set out a chair to read, to draw, to do any number of things, as long as it is conducive to others being here as well. We welcome people being up here and they should feel as though it is as much theirs as anyone else's.
The greenhouse is one of the most special resources that is available for them. They belong here and they should feel privileged to enjoy this place as much as any of the other facilities on campus.
What is your favorite plant?
I love the Begonia family. It is not just one plant, but many plants. One of the reasons it’s my favorite family is because the plants within it are all quite different. I also prefer plants that have interesting foliage rather than pretty flowers. Some people are flower people. Some are leaf people. I am a leaf person.
If you could be any plant, which would it be?
My first instinct is to pick a very long lived plant. But I do not think nature really makes a distinction between something that lives a thousand years or one year. If something lives one year, then that is its completeness, and if it lives longer, then that will be its completeness. I will say though, when I am on a mountainside and watching the sunset, I will look at some old pine tree and think about how it watches the sunset and sunrise everyday for hundreds of years. It is such an incredible thing to be there and watch that view constantly. So maybe some plant on a high up mountain with a beautiful view. I also like those plants because they tend to be small, compact, and tough. They do not look like much but their roots are really, really deep down into the rock. There is something about that metaphor that I like as well.
Learn more about Nick Gershberg
- Follow the greenhouse on Instagram! @barnardgreenhouse
- FATIMA BAGOM '26
