From plants to passion — Theodore Salgado 2025 By Gabrielle Rippel

Many college students dream of turning their academic passions into full-fledged careers, and for many an internship is the path toward that success. By providing hands-on experience working within horticulture, students are given the chance to discover potential career paths and provide a learning opportunity that extends beyond the classroom. Through applying academic knowledge to real world practices in the industry, students can turn aspirations into applicable skillsets. 

FROM PLANTS TO PASSION 

Theodore “Teddy” Salgado, a junior at Cornell University, became enthralled with horticulture at a young age. His grandmother gifted him his first plant — an aloe vera — as a child, which cultivated the passion he has for plants that blossomed beyond a hobby. From growing a garden with his abuelo, to attending annual trips to The Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Garden, it became clear that horticulture was his path. 

As a plant sciences major and current vice president of Cornell’s undergraduate horticulture club, Hortus Forum, Salgado gained his share of experience working with tropical plants. With career aspirations of working in public garden management, Salgado knew an internship would help him expand his knowledge. By completing a summer internship with Planting Fields Arboretum through New York State Parks, Salgado was able to broaden his horizons and gain experience in curation and public garden management, and familiarized himself with woody plants and woody plant care. 

Through the Planting Fields internship, he worked both inside the production greenhouse and in planting for installations throughout the arboretum. 

“It helped me to see the full cycle of planting, seeing how things were being produced, the start of propagating them, all the way to planting and implementing them into the garden installations,” he said. 

Salgado was also assigned to a specific intern project throughout the summer. “I saw the vision for the sensory garden.” Salgado said. “The woman in charge of it, her name was Norma, and I would talk about it. She would bring me through this whole storyline [for] this garden, and appealing to the different senses. When she explained it to me, it made a lot of sense.” 

But there was no interpretive signage for prompting the patron to understand the garden, he said. That’s when Salgado realized the positive impact he could make for the sensory garden. He explained how his signage worked within the pi garden. 

“All the plants have circular seed pods or circular flowers or circular leaves, and once you were told to look for it, it made a lot of sense,” he said. 

Salgado was also in charge of planning some of the installations for the sensory garden.

“Norma allowed me to choose plants and plan out one of the main sections in the garden,” he said. It was a great opportunity to use a lot of tropicals in the landscape and appeal to the audience’s senses. The prompt was to look for the diversity of color, to display plant diversity and biodiversity, and have undertones of the importance and beauty of diversity from a human perspective.” 

CULTIVATING A COMMUNITY 

During the internship, Salgado was able to attend trips to neighboring

greenhouses in the county. 

“It’s nice to have production on site, but we outsource a lot of plants as well. I learned a lot about the importance of the horticultural industry and how it plays into public gardens,” he said. 

With career aspirations of becoming a director for a public garden someday, Salgado saw firsthand the benefit of a community beyond the garden. 

“Seeing all these different gardeners and their different perspectives, and then watching their relationship with the garden was pretty cool,” Salgado said. “That’s something I’m going to definitely take away, because even if I don’t end up in Long Island, I will know the value of having that relationship.” 

LEAVING A LEGACY 

Salgado looks back on his time with Planting Fields fondly. 

“I have planted many different kinds of plants, but this was the first time I’ve ever planted a tree,” Salgado laughed. “A lot of the plants I worked with — instant gratification. Growing woody plants is interesting. Every time you plant a tree, it’s a legacy.” 

Salgado wants to amass as much knowledge as possible from these larger gardens so that he can implement practices for a lesser-known local garden. 

“Every community should have ready-access to green spaces, and by helping to improve smaller gardens and their impact, I can spread the love of plants to as many people as possible during my career.”