By Izzy Taylor
For my senior year of high school, I knew I wanted to try something new. I had gone through the standard science track that most students take, from freshman biology to junior physics, but I wasn’t sure where to go from there in my senior year. Many of my friends ended up in AP Physics or Environmental Science, but I knew those weren’t quite my speed. Somehow, without giving it much thought, I landed in one of my favorite classes I’ve ever taken at Lovett: Botany.
The teacher, for starters, is one of the best to do it. Mr. Reynolds, formally an Ecologist (as he will remind you if you take the class), has the greenest of green thumbs if I’ve ever seen one. And he’s been at the plant game for as long as I have been alive. “I’ve been teaching the botany class since 2007.” Mr. Reynolds said.
This class has layers (kind of like the soil!); it’s not just another lecture class. Students become far more involved with plants, as Mr. Reynolds had hoped. “So for me, the botany class is about teaching some basic knowledge about plants,” he said, “but really just knowledge and skills and appreciation for what plants do for us in society.”
Botany is one of those classes whose lessons will last you a lifetime. Mr. Reynolds believes that everyone will one day use their botany skills in their lives later on. “It’s going to be a hobby, at some point, somebody is going to plant stuff,” he said. “It may not be now, it may not be in college, it may be later. But, the hobby, it’s the number one hobby in the US, Gardening is.”
He wants his students to be prepared to grow their own food and decor for their future homes. “Whether it’s flowers or vegetables or something, somebody wants to do something in their yard, I want you to have the skills, the confidence to do it,” he said.
Most people forget about the botany crew until the spring plant sale, but the students remain active throughout the year. For the most part, we do our work in our upper school domain, the greenhouse (one of the few classrooms with drains in the floor). “What I like to do fall semester, because of the colder temperatures, is teach you greenhouse techniques,” he said. However, the greenhouse serves as our training ground for all the planting activities of the school year.
According to Grant Hulett, a senior botany student with a knack for planting, the greenhouse brings something exciting into the typical day of the Lovett student. “I like the greenhouse because there’s just a really big variety of things in there,” he said. “Not a lot of stuff I would see out in the world, or at least out in Atlanta.”
Students have spent the last few months planting and caring for different fall crops, growing them from seedlings to maturity. Mr. Reynolds plants them in specific pots. “I got those planters, the towers that we’re planting the seedlings in,” he said. The towers have layers to separate the little seeds.
Our second classroom, however, is far less active in the fall. It’s the garden up by the physical plant, and the ceiling is the sky. “We always plant a few things for the fall, but it’s not the biggest growth timeframe,” he said.
In the springtime, however, the garden thrives. “We’re in there, we’re in the garden every single day, and it’s just a really nice way to connect with nature in springtime, get your hands dirty, but also look around and see what’s happening. That time of year is just really active in the garden.” Mr. Reynolds said.
Grant also enjoys a garden day in class, spending the week looking forward to the hour we bus our way up to our outdoor classroom. “I really like the garden,” he said, “because it’s like one of the actual classes where I get to go out and actually do something, it’s very hands-on.”
The spring semester in botany is really about experiencing the ways the things we learned about plants actually manifest. “In the spring, that’s what we talk about, how plants provide all the essential things for us to survive,” Mr. Reynolds said. “Like food, but also medicines and drugs and all the other things, drinks, and all the other things that we need. Building supplies and clothing, and all that stuff.”
The garden, located in the back corner of campus behind the baseball fields, is the botany students’ kingdom during the springtime. And the emphasis is indeed on the students. “The garden is entirely planted by you guys,” Mr. Reynolds said. “For you guys, you pass it on to the next class because they inherit what you all plant.”
Grant agrees with Mr. Reynold’s sentiments, as most of us do. Watching something you planted grow is rewarding; it’s probably the closest thing I can relate in my life to watching a baby walk for the first time. Grant said, “I enjoy being able to plant my own crops, and know it’s mine, and just seeing how much they progress over the year.”
The garden is an important aspect not just of the class, but of the school as a whole. “I think the garden adds a lot to the class as an extra classroom and opportunity for projects and learning. I think it adds a lot to campus,” he said.
As unique as the garden is, and as influenced by the students, it does have a mind of its own. It’s not quite as predictable as the greenhouse. “We talked about the greenhouse and how we have control over the variables, and we can grow things year-round,” he said. “But what’s really fun is in the garden where you don’t have control over those variables and you have to roll with the seasons.”
The most public-facing time of the year is when the botany class hosts an annual plant sale. We sell a variety of plant types, from herbs to decorative plants. The process starts early. “Around spring break is when we start sowing all the seeds for the plant sale,” Mr. Reynolds said. It takes a lot of time and preparation, as it requires many more plants than you see on the tables.
This year, Mr. Reynolds is considering planting various types of plants in the winter. Of course, whatever is sold, “It’s pretty much entirely done by the students,” he said.
But the class isn’t entirely in the garden and greenhouse. Some of the best parts of class happen in the regular classroom. “My favorite part of the class really is when we do the fruit lab,” he said. “Being able to have several dozen types of fruit out for us to all see what they look like and how they’re different from each other.”
After experiencing it for ourselves, I think it’s safe to say that the fruit lab has quickly become one of students’ favorite memories thus far. “I liked the variety of fruit. There were some fruits I’d never had before. I feel like I learned a lot, too. The fruit was right in front of us,” Grant said, “It was pretty fun, and I got to eat a bunch of fruit.”
The final project for juniors in the class involves a little less planting and a little more construction. “As an alternate assessment, they can build something, build some new beds, or we’ve built a fence up there to keep the deer out,” Mr. Reynolds said.
And don’t think we forget about our botanical responsibilities over the summer. Many people, including those outside of the student body, come to help care for the garden while the students are on vacation. “We’ve had Eagle Scouts build things up in the garden, and we’ve had volunteers in the summer who come in,” Mr. Reynolds said.
The crops planted in the spring are often not set to harvest until far after school gets out, but don’t worry, they don’t go to waste. Mr. Reynolds likes to “plant things that the physical plant people like to eat. He said the maintenance staff, the ground crew, and the housekeeping staff will “come and harvest the peppers during the summer.”
Even you, dear reader, can experience the deliciousness of a home-grown (or school-grown) snack if you take our class in the 2026-2027 school year. “You come in and it’s the end of summer and we can pick peppers or figs or cucumbers in the garden and eat ’em,” he said.
The botany community’s projects extend far beyond our classroom. The garden is something the entire Lovett community can continue to build upon. “I mean, because when people hear about it, they’re always curious and interested and want to know what we were growing, and it’s fun,” he said.
Having taken Botany for a few months now, I know that the class is about more than planting stuff for a grade; it’s about growing something for yourself and sharing it with your peers.
“Because to me, this all does come back to food,” Mr. Reynolds said., “I mean, food brings people together. Growing food is something that everybody can do.”
