UGA horticulture graduate walks his own path
Growing up in Athens, Georgia, as the son of a research specialist in entomological genetics, Eli McKinney knew science would play a role in his future, but it was an undergraduate job at the University of Georgia that shaped his focus.
Then a biology major, McKinney took a job in the plant sciences greenhouses where he met Mike Boyd, a horticulture research specialist with the Department of Plant Biology, who ran the greenhouse operations.
“I saw what he did and what the other people were up to in the greenhouses while I was mixing soil, watering plants and cleaning the floor,” McKinney said. He enjoyed the hands-on, active nature of the work, and soon switched his major to horticulture, graduating from the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) in 2012.
From farms to the State Botanical Garden of Georgia
Now McKinney is the greenhouse manager for the State Botanical Garden of Georgia, a UGA Public Service and Outreach unit.
“I’m usually on my feet and outside. This is as close to a trade job as you can get at a university, but it is applied science. You can be as nerdy in horticulture as you want to be,” said McKinney, who oversees the cultivation of thousands of plants every year.
Working with the State Botanical Garden’s grounds and conservation teams and the curators of each of the specialty gardens, McKinney orders the seeds and starts needed for each season, as well as ornamentals, houseplants and native plants for the garden’s gift shop, its annual spring plant sale and a smaller native species plant sale in the fall.
He has particularly enjoyed learning more about native plants from the conservation team at the garden.
“I definitely work with a wider variety of plants, and I have more freedom to grow what I like to grow for our gift shop and plant sales,” McKinney said. “I’ve learned to grow native plants from seed that are new to me and the techniques involved. I’ve gotten the most joy out of that, and I’ve got a greater appreciation for what is native to the area.”
Since taking the role in 2024, McKinney has meticulously tracked what is grown for the plant sales each year, choosing new varieties he believes patrons will enjoy while making sure favorites from the garden’s grounds are included.
While he spends most of his time in the garden’s three greenhouses supervising part-time staff and dedicated volunteers, McKinney takes time every week or two to walk the garden, paying attention to how the plants they cultivated in the greenhouse are adapting outdoors.
“I love seeing things that were grown from seed or from cuttings doing well in the garden,” he said.
McKinney’s career has taken him away from his hometown and back — from his first job in the trial garden at Costa Farms in Miami to working at the Coastal Georgia Botanical Gardens in Savannah to managing an organic vegetable and flower farm in Winterville. In his current role, he encourages horticulture students to focus on what they love to do.
I’ve never had a problem finding a job. There have been many opportunities and a lot of neat angles to explore from conservation and ecology to food and ornamental production to public gardens,” he said. “There are a lot of different paths to satisfy whatever you want to do. You can make it your own.”
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