Meet Benjamin Potts - Class of 2022

Ben is a Norfolk native graduating from Granby High School and earning his Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from Old Dominion University. After college Ben worked at a filling station (in the days when you didn’t have to pump your own gas), worked in the construction industry building homes and worked in a Methodist orphanage in Naples, Italy for three months while waiting for a career opportunity. In other words, Ben had a typical work history in the late 1970s for someone who had a degree in Philosophy.

His career began at a 100-year-old Norfolk wholesale hardware company where he worked for 28 years until the business closed. The last twelve years of his career was spent as manager of four small local retail hardware stores.

Ben has been a long-time member of the Norfolk Botanical Garden and has taken many of the horticulture classes that were offered. He heard about the Norfolk Master Gardener program through instructors/employees and they sparked his interest in becoming a Norfolk MG.

Due to the pandemic, some of the 2022 class members preferred meeting via Zoom while others felt comfortable meeting in person. The instructors successfully created a hybrid class offering both options, except for project presentations and graduation which were in person. Ben believes the instructors had a hard job but he couldn’t ask for a better group of people to coordinate the classes.

To attain his fifty hours, Ben worked at a variety of projects including the Potager Garden at Norfolk Botanical Garden, the East Ocean View Children’s Garden, the Zoo Garden, Ernie Morgan Center Eco Garden, Weyanoke Bird and Wildlife Sanctuary, Lafayette Wetlands Partnership/Celebrating Resilience and the plant sale at the Hermitage. Since attaining his fifty hours, he has added the Significant Tree Program, the Native Dune Plant Demonstration Garden, wrote an article for the Germinator Blog and the Fred Heutte Square Foot Garden. His favorites though are Weyanoke because of all the wildlife it supports and the Potager Garden because it is part of the Norfolk Botanical Garden. Ben’s focus for his future NMG work will focus on native plants because they are important to the survival of many species, increasing the tree canopy in the city, and increasing the number of living shorelines.

When Ben isn’t gardening, he likes bicycling and hiking. He would like to travel more and return to his Tai-Chi classes.

Ben was fortunate to have been born into a loving and supportive family, but as he has gone through life he has become part of other families: a church family, a scholastic family, his coworker family, a cycling family, a running club family, a Tai-Chi family, a hiking family, and now his NMG family.

Ben has hinted that he cycled from Oregon to Yorktown, VA in l976. It would be interesting to hear that story and hopefully Ben will share his adventure with us at some time in the future.

When you see Ben, be sure to introduce yourself and welcome him to NMGA.