How do our gardens grow?

The University of Iowa's abundant flora receive plenty of tender loving care, thanks to UI groundskeeper Mary Stigers, shown above in one of the flower beds near the Theatre Building. Photo by Tom Jorgensen.

Amid the serene green of the summer campus, islands of color and texture stand out. Flanking the entrance to the Pentacrest, skirting the IMU fountain, spilling over the pots in front of the Theatre Building, inventive combinations of flowers and foliage invite campus employees and visitors alike to stop and smell the roses...and the angelonia…and the parsley.

The brains, and the brawn, behind these vibrant oases is Mary Stigers, a groundskeeper in UI Facilities Management. In winter, when she’s not working on snow removal, she’s planning the striking displays that provide punch to frequently traversed areas of campus.

According to Shawn Fitzpatrick, UI grounds crew supervisor, Stigers is responsible for 95 percent of the flower beds on campus. She plans and prepares the beds, plants and weeds them, controls pests, and waters the flowers. It’s a constant challenge, because as planting is finished in one bed it’s time to plant another and the previously planted beds need to be watered and weeded. In addition to the areas mentioned above, these include the beds and planters at the President’s Residence, the Main Library, the English-Philosophy Building, Hancher Auditorium, the Dental Science Building, the Nursing Building, and the Boyd Law Building.

This year she’s had the assistance of Kathy Reed, a temporary Facilities Management employee with a background in nursery work.

	University Gothic? No, it's Kathy Reed and Mary Stigers, groundskeepers in Facilities Management, tending to the campus's bountiful gardens in their John Deere Gator. Photo by Tom Jorgensen.

“It’s fun working with Mary to put together displays that have a ‘wow’ factor,” Reed says.

Stigers has spent 27 years at the University, the past eight as a groundskeeper. She worked on the Oakdale campus for three years, and this is her fifth year “in town.”

“It’s something I always wanted to do,” Stigers says, “to be outside, working with flowers. I enjoy the creative aspect of it.”

“I wish I could say I come up with the ideas,” Fitzpatrick says of Stigers’ design choices. “Along about mid-July, people start calling and e-mailing to let us know how nice it looks.”

Keeping those compliments coming is an enormous job, of which flower beds are just one part. Fitzpatrick oversees a grounds crew of 19, including 16 groundskeepers on the main campus and three on the Oakdale campus. These folks are responsible for litter control, mulching and weeding shrubbery beds, and mowing. Three of the 19 employees are arborists who plant, prune, water, and otherwise care for the 10,000 trees on the two campuses. In the wintertime, all the grounds crew, including Stigers, take care of snow removal and slippery spots on walkways, as well as pitching in on tree care.

The implications of all this activity to create and maintain an attractive campus go far beyond simply appealing to the sensibilities of University employees.

A recent study published in Facilities Manager found that buildings, grounds, and landscaping play an important role in recruiting students to a campus: more than half of the 16,513 students who responded to the study’s survey said that attractiveness of the campus was essential or very important in their decision to attend a particular institution (www.appa.org/FacilitiesManager/article.cfm?ItemNumber=2567&parentid=2542).

In addition to attracting incoming students, a favorite bench, tree, or grassy knoll may loom large in the memories of students of the past.

“The campus is a unique place, with a lot of history,” says Bob Brooks, associate director of landscape services. “It should appeal to alumni, but at the same time it’s growing and must be fluid and adaptable as we incorporate new buildings and address changes in the needs and numbers of our students, faculty, staff, and visitors.”

As an extension of the 2006 Campus Master Plan (www.facilities.uiowa.edu/MasterPlan/index.htm), Brooks says that later this year a campus landscape master plan will be written to provide goals, vision, and guidance on how to use the landscape and its elements—plant materials, paving, benches, and lighting, for example—to enhance the goals of the master plan and to tie together the diversity of buildings and geographic features on campus.

For Mary Stigers, doing her part to enhance the landscape is an ongoing challenge, albeit one she thoroughly enjoys. Each year she builds on her past successes and gets ideas about new plants to incorporate from landscaping magazines and books and visits to other institutions and gardens.

“We try hard to do something other than the old standbys,” Stigers says, pointing out a planter brimming with Swedish ivy, verbena, salvia, flax, coleus, and fiber optic grass, “and people let us know that they enjoy it. There’s a lot of satisfaction in that.”

by Linzee Kull McCray

For more photos of UI gardens, click on Photo Feature on the top right of this page.