Get to know our 2025 First Vice President: Karen Kupelian

- What is your favorite thing about gardening? I love the beauty it adds to the world and being able to enjoy it on my own and with others.

- What led you to become a master gardener? I enjoyed gardening since buying my home but knew much less than I wished to. I wanted to know how to care for my yard and my friends and families yards with evidence backed research.

- What is your favorite thing about being a master gardener? The community and commitment to growing and education. The all hands on deck mulching days, the way we celebrate milestones with and for each other and learn from each other is wonderful.

- What is your favorite memory during your time as a master gardener? So many! Apple tasting in class to garden tours and the satisfaction of weed pulling and mulching at the arboretum with friends.

- What is your favorite season as a gardener? Spring! reminder of the renewal and life that spring brings. 

- How many years have you been gardening? Less than 10

- Have you always gardened in TN or did you start somewhere else? What is the same/different? I have always gardened in TN with a background growing up in Maryland and college and grad school in Virginia. All the same growing zone so I had some familiarity with the plants that would grow there. 

- If you were moving and could only take one plant with you, what would it be? I'm really a sucker for flowering plants and trees. I guess an Iris tuber- they are easy to transplant and spread nicely.

- What are some staples that you will always grow in your garden? Boxwoods, azaleas, iris, peony, helleboreus, dafodils, coneflower, rose and Hydrangea. I hope to always have a cutting garden to share with friends and family.

- What is the most important lesson you have learned about gardening? To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow. It takes time, patience, pruning, consistency, management to reap the rewards a garden can offer. Also of course-right plant, right place.