member profile
MEA member's job nurtures plants, people
'I can't believe they pay me to do this'
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EAST LANSING—Ann Hancock is a self-described “plant geek.” She has a way of making plants come alive for visitors and master gardeners alike at the Michigan State University Horticulture Demonstration Gardens where she works as a horticulturist.
Her love for her job—and the volunteers who help her in the garden every week—is obvious. Just ask her.
“I’m one of the luckiest people in the world,” Hancock gushes. “I can’t believe they pay me to do this.”
Her work environment isn’t traditional in education—she spends countless hours walking paths lined with cone flowers, pots teeming with annuals and beds filled with colorful foliage. Picking pesky Japanese beetles from plants is done amidst thousands of blooming roses.
Hancock, who oversees the Judith DeLapa Perennial Garden, is a member of the Administrative Professionals Association at MSU, a group that represents an array of university staff. She’s one of about 9,800 higher education employees statewide who belong to MEA.
Hancock helps the plants come alive—literally and figuratively. She has a tendency to describe them like people, referring to invasive loosestrife as “thugs” and two varieties of intermingling phlox as a “big bunch of happy people at a cocktail party.”
While searching for copper and green Japanese beetles, she tells a visitor that traps hung in many homeowners’ gardens to kill the pesky bugs actually attract them.
“The beetles come from all over because it’s an orgy—a really good time,” Hancock explains with a laugh.
Summer is prime time for the public gardens, but Hancock’s job extends year-round. Her position is funded through donations and fundraising. Hancock holds bachelor’s and masters degrees in botany. She earned an associate’s degree in landscape design.
In addition to nurturing plants in the MSU gardens, Hancock tends to the needs of plant-loving people, too. She teaches master gardening classes, indulges volunteers with sweets and freshly brewed coffee, and oversees a popular plant sale every year.
More than 100 volunteers help in the gardens, including many graduates of Hancock’s classes.
One late summer morning, a couple dozen volunteers spread out over the gardens, deadheading plants, yanking weeds and debugging flowers. They praised Hancock, attributing much of the garden’s beauty to her hard work.
“It’s art,” said Ruby Grimes of Bath.
“It’s natural art. It’s an atmosphere that makes you appreciate nature.”
Added Midge Morrow, a retired teacher and master gardener: “Ann’s just fabulous.”