Blooming IU's beauty

Dec. 15, 1936, is the date heading a letter addressed to IU-Bloomington from one very famous landscape design company, the Olmsted brothers, outlining plans to beautify IU's campus.\nThe brothers, John Charles and Frederick Law Jr., inherited the nation's premier landscape architecture company from their late and legendary father, Frederick Law Olmsted, in 1903.\nTheir letter was a list. Page after page details the renovations the company was planning to undertake upon the University.\nThree luscious Pink Flowering Dogwoods. Three grappling Glossy Winter Creepers. Twelve yellow, radiant Showy Border Forsythias. One smooth European Beech. Two lustrous green Japanese Yews. These were just a few among the many to be planted at the Indiana Memorial Union.\nOne aromatic tulip tree. Twenty-four inhibiting Regel Privets. Two grasping Engelmann Creepers. Fourteen rose-like Spreading Cotoneasters. These were only a select few to be planted at the University's main library.\nOther buildings included in the Olmsted Brothers' plan were the music building, Myers Hall and the Medical Building. These 20th-century renovations by a famous architectural company helped propel IU to become what Thomas A. Gaines, in his book "The Campus as a Work of Art," considers one of the five most beautiful campuses in the nation.\nCreating and then sustaining the designs that qualify the Bloomington campus as a work of art is a vigorous and time-consuming project. The landscaping process is intricate and requires a tremendous amount of help. IU's 2,000-acre campus is divided into four sections, with a supervisor responsible for each. Forty-four full-time staff members and 30 part-time students are employed and divided among the four divisions.\n"It's such a big operation that it's hard to give a lot of detail," says Michael Crowe, director of facilities.\nFor example, the staff members are further divided into different niches. Some are responsible for concrete and masonry while others operate heavy machinery. The University also staffs equipment mechanics, grounds keepers, gardeners, arborists, truck drivers, the nursery crew and the landscape \narchitects.\nThe process being with one solitary seedling, which will flourish into a flower bed surrounding some of IU's most beautiful landmarks. The pressure is on to consistently recreate some of the most picturesque places on campus, like the Sample Gates.\nEach year, the process happens without a single blueprint. Rather, what makes the seed grow is an informal conversation between three very important individuals.\nOn an annual basis, Crowe meets with Mia Williams, director of landscape architecture, and Marshall Goss, former IU track coach and current manager of the nursery. They discuss the option of purchasing new varieties of plants to be introduced that year, reusing old plants that worked well in the past and discarding plants that didn't work. In the end, a list is compiled of what flowers will be grown, how many there are and in which of the 400 flowerbeds they will be planted. This year, 97 different varieties were used.\nGoss is primarily responsible for selecting flower content. His cluttered cubicle at the nursery contains a green file cabinet overstuffed with a myriad of magazines depicting thousands of varieties of flowers.\n"Here's a good one," he says as he pulled out EuroAmerica from one of the drawers of the filing cabinet. \nEuphorbia Diamond Frost is a flower featured in one magazine. Hundreds of different colored varieties of chrysanthemums fill the pages of another. Coleus, an ivy known for its radiantly colored leaves, is yet another. Molten Lava coleus. Oompah coleus ... the list goes on.\nNext year, onlookers can expect such oddities as red and yellow hot peppers.\n"As long as no one eats them," Goss says.\nMarshall says he likes peppers because they are so different from the typical flower one would see on campus. \n"I don't care what's popular," he says. "I care if I like them and if they grow well." \nGoss looks for plants he personally finds attractive. He says he thinks to himself, "Which one do I like best?"\nOther factors come into play. For instance, he says he often orders based on color.\n"This particular one right here is red," Goss points out as he flipped through the Yoder magazine. "That would look pretty good with the colors of the school."\nCrow's office never creates a tangible blueprint. It eyeballs it -- if a plant didn't spread well, it's gone. If it didn't bloom, bye-bye. Plants are replaced according to factors such as color, height, spread and the type of the plant (whether it is a flower, a bush or a type of grass).\n"We pretty much know just in our heads," Williams says. "So we'll say, 'We need to get more height in the center of the beds at Sample Gates because it really didn't work last year.' Then we'll come up with whatever plant material we want to fill."\nEvery single plant has its own unique quality. IU's signature flower, the blood red Dragon Wing Begonia, has been present on campus since 1972. Not until 2001, however, did the plant become widely planted.\n"It's interesting how some (plants) stay dormant, and then someone tries them a certain way and they grow," Goss says.\nWith selection done, the growing process can begin. At the side of an old country road north of the bypass, hidden among trees and old houses, sits the University nursery. Goss' office is nothing more than a two-room building attached to a garage.\nAcross the gravel driveway sit five greenhouses. Four of them are divided into pairs and attached at the hips. The last one sits alone, separated from the others. It is the first greenhouse IU ever had. It is smaller than the others, but Goss says he loves this one most.\nEach greenhouse holds a certain type of plant, depending on the ideal temperature the plant requires to grow properly, the amount of light needed and the time of year the flower is planted. All five greenhouses are never in use at the same time. Goss says it's simply too much work.\nIn February, 3,000 pansies arrive in four-inch pots. Some have deep purple petals with a jet-black starburst at their core. Others are yellow with a vibrant orange center. As the flowers grow, they will be transferred twice into bigger pots before being transported to campus to be planted in a bed.\nApril and May are the most colorful months at the greenhouses, Goss says. Roughly 6,000 annuals -- plants that grow for a single season and must be replanted anew the following year -- arrive. Pots overrun the greenhouses, clutter the tops of tables and dangle from metal bars above.\nSeptember rolls around and 8,000 chrysanthemums arrive. Orange. Red. White. Pink. Purple. \nTrees are raised at the nursery as well. Approximately 125 of the 500 trees planted on campus every year are raised in a field behind the nursery, Goss says. Clusters of miniature orange berries engulf the crab apple trees growing in the field. Flaming red maples are scattered throughout. The brilliant yellow leaves of the ginkgo tree sway in the breeze.\nThe remaining three-fourths of the trees are purchased from suppliers. The University would raise all of the trees planted yearly on campus but they are routinely thwarted by deer. \n"They simply destroy us out here," Goss says. \nThe damage done by animals is apparent. The bark of several trees has been rubbed bare by antlers, leaving the raw, pale skin of the interiors revealed.\nThe University recently purchased vacant lots in town to grow additional trees. By doing this, it hopes to decrease the number of damaged trees.\nMajor planting revolves around IU's most important citizens -- its students -- and occurs during two pivotal points of the year -- in May, around graduation, and in September, when the students have returned.\nOfficially, planting commences May 1 of each year. Assembly Hall is the first to receive its new colors. The flagpole and sundial in front are enveloped by cream-and-crimson-colored chrysanthemums.\nThe IMU is next. Electric green ivy tumbles out of hanging pots. Red and white mums litter the flower beds. Purple, yellow, red, orange and white mums encircle the newly installed electronic billboard in front. Thick strands of maroon-colored potato vines tumble over the limestone wall of the flowerbed.\nThe Sample Gates and Showalter Fountain follow. \nAfter initial planting by the landscape employees is finished, upkeep of the flowerbeds is taken over by other campus workers. But the process for the landscaping crew continues.\nGoss says his favorite part of the job is "seeing that what you've grown pleases other people." \nThe impact of IU's landscape on the people in the community is overwhelming. Curt Simic, president of the IU Foundation, says the landscape at the University is always, without fail, one of the top three things alumni remember about the campus.\n"The landscape is what people see first when entering the campus and see last when leaving," Goss says. "The impact of flowers is one of the greatest the University has"