Oliver Hutchens, C’23

Aspiring botanist, plant doctor

Three or four years ago, the biology department got a major donation from Vanderbilt when their greenhouse closed. It’s an amazing collection. Seeing all the plants only requires walking a little loop around this 20-foot building, but I could do that loop for hours, looking at all the specimens—seeing if they’ve grown a little bit, seeing if they need to be watered, if there are any weeds growing in the pots. That sounds like bliss—at least to me. There's a little bit of my heart in that greenhouse.

Working with the Sewanee Herbarium has been my first step into a community of people who feel the same way I do, who see what I see in botany. But I also feel a very fundamental drive to grow that community. Plant Doctor Friday was something I put together to help more people understand the immense joy that can come from plants. A lot of people need help keeping their plants healthy, so Plant Doctor Friday ended up being the most popular event that we have ever held. A ton of people showed up with the saddest little dorm plants you’ve ever seen. We helped them out, showed them how to keep them happy, and I guess I got a bit of a reputation for that.

I think of my work at the Herbarium as a fusion of what I have discovered I am passionate about in the world and my own efforts to connect with the people around me. With the passion I found for exploring the things growing and thriving around me, I started finding myself saying, "I want more connections like this. I started with plants, and now I want more connections with people, maybe connections with people about plants." That's how I became the Plant Doctor, I guess. That's how it became so important to me.