City has services of German horticulturist
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Andreas Blatt has been living in McMinnville for about a year and started working as one of the city’s new greenery experts last month. He hails from Germany, where the likelihood of snow on the ground and cold weather is a fact of life this time of year.
Blatt comes to the profession with an appropriate name since his name is German for leaf. He found his way to McMinnville after becoming acquainted with a local nursery he worked with while living in Nashville with a business associate.
Because schooling is structured differently in Germany, Blatt’s background in landscape architecture is unfamiliar compared to the American system. He served a three-year apprenticeship in the field while working in the western part of the country, which would be equivalent to a journeyman’s license.
After that, he attended schooling that would be equivalent to a four-year degree, which is comparable to a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture.
“You can find a job with that,” he said of his apprenticeship in Germany. “You don’t have to go to school, but my idea was to be a landscape architect some day, so I wanted to learn it all.”
So far, he has been busy working on beds in front of city hall, designing beds for the Civic Center’s walking trail and getting quotes on materials, as well as working on other city property. He was found Friday along with urban forester Nick Kuhn working on landscaping at the city’s new fire station.
Even though it feels cold, Blatt and Kuhn said it’s never too late to start planting and will stay that way until the ground freezes. Blatt said his goal is to help beautify the city but also to create areas that may be easier to maintain than mowing, using native plants as much as possible.
“I want to make it more pleasing,” he said, speaking in English he began to learn in Germany while in fifth grade. “We have so many lawn areas and so much more is possible than only lawns. It can be less work-intensive through the whole year to have the shrubs and perennial plantings than it can be to have a lawn.”
So far, he said he is enjoying the area and the people.
“It’s very nice in Tennessee. The Middle Tennessee area is very similar. We have hills about this size. The only difference is it’s not that hot [there] in the summer,” he said of plantings.
“Everybody seems to be friendly and I seem to be welcome,” he added of living in McMinnville. “People are really helpful here, that I can say, and I enjoy working for the city.”