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Employee Spotlight: Mary Woolman

Employee Spotlight: Mary Woolman


Mary Woolman

Job Title: Woody Ornamental and Edible Product Manager

Time with Star® Roses and Plants: 7 years

Gilded Hearts Cercis
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Q: Can you share a little about your work background and how you got your start at Star® Roses and Plants?

A: I have been working with plants all my life. I’ll give you a few of the horticultural highlights to keep this short. I attended Cecil County School of Technology in high school for Natural Resources. Also in high school, I worked at a beautiful peach orchard called Eagles Roost in North East, Maryland. I interned with DuPont Crop Protection and got the opportunity to work at Longwood Gardens in their research department. There were many other horticulture jobs in between as I tirelessly searched for a place as special as Star® Roses and Plants.


Q: What is one thing about your job that you particularly enjoy?

A: The hard part is picking one thing when you love everything about your job. A very rewarding part is walking with breeders and finding a plant that shows promise to revolutionize a product for the industry. 


Q: Is there anything that surprises you about the horticulture industry?  

A: It all surprises me, all the time. The Horticulture industry is so intertwined and vast that no matter my level of education or experience I will always be a student. 


Q: We’re lucky to work with a product that is beautiful and alive: plants! Can you speak to how that affects you and the way you do your work? 

A: People garden for enjoyment, nourishment, and stress relief. Working with plants is exactly that for me, every day.


Q: It’s hard to choose a favorite plant, but what is one that you particularly love right now?  

A: Kalmia latifolia or Mountain Laurel. A native shrub blooming in the forest understory in May along the roadside to my home in Maryland. It possesses unique cup shaped flowers, and the branch structure makes this shrub beautiful while out of bloom. I would love to see Star® Roses and Plants bring it back to the spotlight.


Q: Many plant trends come and go over the years. Is there one trend or plant that you wish would have taken off and stuck?

A: I am a lover of large, majestic plants. I have seen plants get smaller and smaller over the years in every genus due to smaller yards or overall green spaces shrinking in development. I can’t fix shrinking spaces, but I hope the big plants can come back and be a solution to our global environmental issues.


Q: What’s one piece of advice you’ve received or one thing you’ve learned from working in the horticulture industry? 

A: “When you are talking with someone, always assume you are going to learn something from them.”


Q: The 25th Anniversary of The Knock Out® Rose is coming up in 2025. Do you have a personal Knock Out® story? Why do you think it has been so revolutionary?

A: I knew the Knock Out® long before I knew about Star Roses and Plants. My mother’s obsession with “the roses in the green pots” may have been a foreshadowing of what came to be my career. My mother always knew plant quality, you see. The way they bloomed profusely and grew so full and clean without requiring maintenance, saved a single mom some much-needed time. The 6 Knock Out® Roses in my mom’s yard, acquired over multiple Mother’s Day’s, started a Knock Out® trend down the street in our neighborhood. 


Q: When you’re not working, what do you like to do for fun? 

A: When I’m not working, I spend a lot of time in the garden with my German shepherd, Freya. She loves to pick and eat blueberries or just about any produce I grow. We also go to the local beach on the river or hikes through the forest. I’m not inside much, but if I am I’m cooking. If it wasn’t for one split decision in high school, I may have been a chef by now.