HEARTLAND PEOPLE: Horticulture Is In Her Blood

When Dee Dee Jacobson was growing up, it was not unusual for her to find tagged squirrels and dead birds in the refrigerator.

Her father taught animal behavior at Cornell University and occasionally brought home some of his work.

Sometimes, he'd take his kids to work. Dee Dee and her five brothers and sisters would tag along with dad and his graduate class on field trips, as they inspected animal foot prints in the snow in upstate New York and studied birds and animals in the woods around them.

In their free time, the brothers and sisters would go hiking, swimming or just looking for salamanders under the rock. Jacobson also hobnobbed with Ithaca's Rock Garden Society members and collected red tide samples for her step dad.

If nature was a part of her childhood, it also helped the future horticulturist that love of nature was in her blood.

Jacobson's grandfather was a gardener for Rockefeller Estates. Growing up, her father made his spending money collecting insects and plant specimens for scientific journals.

"I grew up with plants," she said.

Today, many in the county know her as the urban horticulturist for the Highlands County Extension Service - the liaison between the extension office's resources and homeowners' and landscapers' horticultural needs.

It's Jacobson's job to tell people if that wilted plant in their front yard is fighting a losing battle and what else might grow better in its  place.

She's been accosted with everything from diseased palms for identification to chopped snakes from scared homeowners, inquiring if the visiting reptile is poisonous.

On other days she gets to inspect the occasional gauze with half an insect buried inside. A grandmother once brought the gauze in to find out what bit her grandson. Turns out it was a chigger.

Snowbirds fixing to go back to the North in the spring often stop by to ask how to keep their yards preserved until they return.

Jacobson's advice is for people to learn a bit more about the plant they are interested in. "Do you know how large it gets or how wide it gets?" Check the soil's pH. The extension service checks the acidity or alkalinity of soil samples for a nominal fee. And yes, the county's soil is acidic and may require lime added to it. And equally important: to plant right.

"Shrubs and trees are often planted in the wrong place and they (people) are battling it," she added.

These days, Jacobson's also trying to emphasize the importance of watering right. She quotes a study done by the St. John's Water Management System.

"Fifty percent of our drinking water is used for landscaping," she said. "That's too much of drinking water on landscaping."

She also supervises 48 master gardeners, who are essentially volunteers trained by the extension service to answer questions related to gardening and landscaping.

In the coming months, motorists going southbound on U.S. 27 might see one side of the Bert J. Harris Jr. Agricultural Center, formerly the Agri-Civic Center, slightly transformed.

Jacobson is planning to create a demonstration garden with a butterfly garden, boxes showing the different types of mulches, Florida-friendly plants, and handouts on these that the general public can take.

Another project slated to roll out sooner is an "irrigation lab," for which Jacobson has partnered with the Highlands Soil And Water Conservation District's Corine Burgess.

Come January, a rented van will roll around to homeowners' association meetings and a crew will help assess people's sprinkler systems and show them how to save water while irrigating their yards.

Burgess, who is the natural resources specialist with Soil and Water, has worked before with Jacobson and has always found her helpful.

"Whenever she goes to grant conferences, she brings everything back (to share)," Burgess said.

Jacobson has given Burgess everything from advice to potting soil for her projects.

"She's very knowledgeable, very passionate about her work," Burgess added. "She's also a team player."

Single Mom Goes Back To School
Jacobson is comfortable talking about horticulture but she had to take the long route to become a horticulturist.

When her marriage broke up many years ago, she was in her early 30s, with a high school diploma, a dairy farm and a young child.

Going back to school to support herself and her son, Benjamin, was the best option, she figured. It wasn't the easiest one.

In between jobs as a landscaper, an architect, and a builder of demonstration gardens and homes, the single mom finally graduated with a bachelor's degree in floriculture and ornamental horticulture from Cornell University, her old stomping grounds.

Florida is more conducive to horticulture since one can work year-round, so Jacobson moved to Orlando after graduation.

She worked as a consultant for horticulture corporations such as Valley Crest and Davey Tree Expert Company; she co-owned and operated a five-acre greenhouse, and then decided to work with commercial growers and landscapers as a horticulture extension agent for the University of Florida.

Two years ago, she moved to Highlands County to be close to her ailing mother.

These days, after work she gets to work a little bit more with flowers and plants, this time on her own yard that she is cultivating from scratch.

Of course, she'd like to plant every flower and bush she likes but she discovered a long time ago that she would need five acres and a full-time gardener to indulge that fantasy, she said with a laugh.

A family member who often seeks counseling on gardening, besides the myriad people she encounters, is her son, Benjamin, who is an engineering student at USF.

At first it didn't seem that he cared for anything landscaping.

When Jacobson was going to school, she'd sometimes take him to classes when his school was out. He'd help her learn the scientific names of plants.

One day her class was having an exercise where students had to take turns reciting the scientific and common names of plants, and some details on them.

The professor asked Benjamin if he was interested in joining. One plant name in particular had stood out to Benjamin during homework sessions with his mom, his namesake - the ficus benjamina.

Sure enough, he rattled off everything he knew about ficus benjamina and kept it going with other rounds.

When the professor asked him if he was interested in going into the horticulture business, Jacobson remembers his reply, "'Oh! Heck no.'"

Turns out, he now has a landscaping business on the side and often solicits Mom's advice before meeting clients.

The woman who owned a diary farm, a greenhouse and went back to an Ivy League school as a single mother is proud of many things but proudest of one: her son.

If somebody ever asked her what or who she would consider as the one she has left her greatest mark on, Jacobson knows what she'll say.

"My son is my legacy to the world," she said. "I am so proud of him."