Article & photo by: Greg K. Deal
'It gives you purpose': City of Greenwood horticulturalist learned work ethic from grandfather
"It was a rainy and dreary day in Greenwood. It probably wasn’t the best day to be outdoors doing landscaping work.
City of Greenwood horticulturist Malcolm Pitman could be found inside the city’s greenhouse along Phoenix Street. He was drilling holes in a PVC pipe, hoping to create a prototype for a new waterfall feature on the Clemson Tiger topiary that will be on display with dozens of others this summer in Uptown Greenwood during the S.C. Festival of Flowers.
“Irrigation,” Pitman said. “I have become the plumber master, I guess. Right now it’s an idea. We’ll see if it works.”
The Tiger topiary has an added rock on the front this year, and the idea is for water to flow from under the Tiger’s neck to the base of the rock near its feet.
“I can look at mechanical things and be able to put them together,” Pitman said. “It comes very easy to me. For some people, it doesn’t, and that’s OK, too. I’ve turned into the go-to guy.”
Pitman grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His grandfather started a landscaping business in the early 1970s. Pitman began working summers for him starting when he was 10 years old.
“That’s when I got the itch,” said Pitman, who lives on a small farm in Hodges with his wife and three children. “I knew I probably wouldn’t be working in an office. That’s not for me. I enjoy the outdoors.”
Pitman went to a Milwaukee-area technical college and studied landscaping and horticulture. He continued to work with his grandfather, then put the landscaping field aside for a while when he and his family moved to Greenwood in 2012. He was a stay-at-home dad before applying for the horticulturist job last year.
In addition to his work in the greenhouse, Pitman and the horticulture staff are starting seedlings to get ready for spring and summer. Some of them are for flowers and plants that will dot the Uptown landscape.
“That’s kind of the focal points,” Pitman said. “We work where they’re going to be seen the most, but there’s also the city garden out by the country club.”
The city also grows vegetables at the famers market community garden.
“They take the produce and donate it to the food bank here,” Pitman said.
The greenhouse is where the city stores the topiaries when they aren’t on display. That’s where they get a little love and care in the offseason.
“We’re creating all the replacement flowers and plants for all these topiaries,” Pitman said. “There’s a lot of maintenance that needs to be done. The moss inside of it can deteriorate, and then it’s pretty much hollow. And they’ll dry out in the summer sun. We had a few problems with that last year.”
Pitman is right at home in the greenhouse, even though it’s indoors. He took greenhouse production in college. When he’s outside, he likes the “physical change” he gets to make to the world around him.
“It’s not instant gratification, you know, because these are plants — and everybody usually wants instant gratification,” Pitman said. “After we’ve done the starting of the seeds and have done all that work we put into the ground, I like watching it grow. That full, mature-sized plant, that’s just beautiful and colorful.”
Even if he’s just pruning or deadheading plants, Pitman and other crewmembers encounter people who tell them they are doing a good job.
“It’s nice to bring a little joy to someone today just by (planting) a flower or something like that,” Pitman said. “Right now, we’re getting ready for summer already.
“I like to think a season ahead. I always liked that about the job. You’re always thinking forward and have these goals and timelines you want to hit. It’s nice to have a goal. It gives you purpose.”
Pitman said he got all of his work ethic from his grandfather.
“I just learned not to be full of excuses,” he said. “Do the work because it needs to be done. Working for my grandfather, you don’t slack off because that’s your family’s name. I learned to do a good job, care about your customers and treat them really well.”
