Laura Simonet interns at Magnolia
June 5, 2011
CHARLESTON, SC – June 3, 2011 – The Spanish moss captured Laura’s imagination
Laura Simonet, a 19-year-old horticulture student from France, joined the gardening crew at Magnolia for two months this spring, raking in experiences that will last a life time. The most surprising and lasting image that she‟ll take home to Lyon is the live oaks adorned with banners of Spanish moss.
From the French point of view, “the principal characteristic of the garden is the Spanish moss,” Simonet said during a recent stroll along the garden‟s graveled paths. In the grand scale, Simonet added that she gained real-world gardening experience to go along with classroom theory.
Laura was the third French student in two years to participate in a foreign exchange program with Magnolia. She is studying landscape architecture at the National School of Higher Studies in Nature and Landscape Architecture in Blois, France.
Last year, Jean-Christophe Pigeon and Thibaut Jeandel, students at the prestigious Versailles national School of Landscape Architecture near Paris, were interns at Magnolia. On June 11, two French students, Coralie Beaune and Baptiste Salliou, students at Versailles, will begin internships at Magnolia. The student visits are part of the international exchange program with the French Heritage Society.
Tom Johnson‟s, Magnolia‟s director of gardens, said Laura‟s internship went beyond designing azalea beds and propagating plants in the greenhouse.
“She helped us translate our „From Slavery to Freedom‟ booklet into French,” he said. “This French version of the booklet will be a great benefit to our French-speaking visitors. Numerous times throughout her internship, I called on Laura to help translate tours to our French visitors. This added greatly to the enjoyment of the gardens by our French tourists.”
Laura also visited other gardens in the South. She traveled with Johnson and Miles Beach, director of Magnolia‟s camellia collections, on a trip to acquire cuttings of native azaleas from Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Ga., and Massee Lane Gardens in Fort Valley, Ga.
As part of her five-year program, Laura is required to complete two internships in an English-speaking country. Being a first-year student, Laura has not settled on a major project of landscape design that she‟d like to pursue. “My taste will change by the fifth year,” she said. “I don‟t know what the project will be.”
