MetroParks gardens director visits Costa Rica

By JORDYN GRZELEWSKI

jgrzelewski@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Poisonous snakes, cloud forests, and orchids that blossom 40 feet above the ground.

These are just a few of the sights Mill Creek MetroParks Gardens Director Andrew Pratt experienced during a recent trip to Costa Rica.

Pratt, who took over leadership of Fellows Riverside Gardens in February, went on the 10-day excursion in July as field work for the graduate degree in biology that he’s pursuing. The Garden Club of America’s Katharine M. Grosscup Scholarship in Horticulture, for which Pratt went through a rigorous application process, covered the cost.

The trip was an immersive learning experience for Pratt, and one that he believes will inform his direction of the Gardens, particularly the annual orchid exhibit.

“It was amazing,” he said. “The one thing that struck me about the country and my experience there, is the diversity. The complexity of the forest there. I can’t even formulate it in words. Everywhere you turn, there’s a new species, a new plant, a new animal, a new orchid.”

The trip first took him to La Selva Biological Station, a protected area encompassing a tropical rain forest in northeastern Costa Rica.

Pratt, his instructors, and his 16 fellow graduate students went on night hikes through the rain forest there.

“The first night, we came across a fer-de-lance – a poisonous snake,” he recalled. “It was shocking. You’re hiking there in the dark, with weak flashlights, and, ‘On your right, there’s a highly venomous snake.’”

The group also visited Arenal Volcano in northwestern Costa Rica. From their set-up at the base of the active volcano, the students compared the flora and fauna there to what they’d seen at La Selva.

“There are so many unique ecosystems in Costa Rica, and that’s what amazed me,” Pratt said.

From there, Pratt traveled to Monteverde, a mountainous town known for its “cloud forest.”

“You reach the summit, and you feel like you’re in a big cloud,” said Pratt.

There, he found less ecological diversity, but enjoyed the relatively mild weather and the chance to help plant 100 trees.

The trip was fulfillment of part of Pratt’s lifelong dream to earn a graduate degree, a goal that he’s worked toward incrementally over the last several years while balancing a full-time job and family life.

Pratt is enrolled in Project Dragonfly, through Miami University. He first learned about the program while working at Cleveland Botanical Garden, where he worked for several years before coming to the MetroParks.

“What’s nice about the program is, it’s been very, very flexible. It’s meant for working adults, as well as recent grads,” he said.

Pratt’s needed that flexibility, especially after he and his wife welcomed a daughter a few years ago.

He’s made it all work, though, and plans to finish his degree sometime next year.

Now that he’s back from Costa Rica, Pratt is considering how he can apply his newfound knowledge to Fellows.

“I really hope to somehow use parts of this experience to help shape our orchid show here,” he said of the Gardens’ annual winter display. “What blew my mind was, nature’s way of landscaping. We strive to try to recreate” that.