Magnolia and French gardens in fifth year with exchange program
April 12, 2017
Two American and two French college students will participate this summer in a horticultural exchange program between Magnolia Plantation and Gardens and the French Heritage Society.
The American interns are Ashley Wiggins, who is pursuing an associate degree in horticulture at Trident Technical College, and Cecilia Probst, a junior in the landscape design program at the University of Georgia.
Wiggins said this journey into horticulture will thrust her into a world of new horizons. “This opportunity to learn and garden in France will open so many doors to future endeavors. My goal is to one day own my own business, bringing to the world all of the beauty I see when I look at plants.”
Probst wants to pursue a career in residential landscape design. The internship, she said, meshes with her academic goals. “As a landscape architecture major and French minor,” she said, “I am so lucky to have found an internship that combines the two areas that I am studying.”
Wiggins and Probst will work at two prestigious gardens in France, beginning in June. They will spend a month at each garden.
The French students, Tiphaine Babulle-Cadin and Lucille Feuillet, students at the National Landscape School of Versailles, are the French Heritage Society’s picks to work with Magnolia’s garden staff this summer.
They also will tour gardens in the Lowcountry with members of Alliance Francaise in Charleston and Southern gardens with Magnolia’s executive director Tom Johnson. Since 2010, fifteen French students have interned at Magnolia.
Wiggins is the third Trident Technical College student selected for the internship. Trident Tech graduate Katherine Reeves White was selected in 2011. She is currently the assistant horticulturist at Magnolia. John W. “Tripp” Odom III was an intern in 2015.
Probst is the second University of Georgia student selected for the program. University of Georgia student Caroline Broder was selected in 2012.
Other U.S. participants and their internship year are: Dana Reynolds, North Carolina State University, 2013, and Ruth Morgan, Alamance Community College in Graham, N.C., 2014.
