Nursery assistants paint campus canvas, prep for Homecoming

Beneath the looming Memorial Stadium scoreboard, the flower guys get to work. Bruce Cabanaw plunges his shovel into freshly tilled soil and the sparse remains of periwinkle vincas.

Beside him, bent over on kneepads, Chuck Burleson removes a red chrysanthemum from its green plastic pot and packs it into the earth with his hands. They work in a delicate harmony, planting row after row of mums, laying down white ones inside the red to form a capital “I” in preparation for Saturday’s Homecoming game against Arkansas State.

“It’s gonna look good when it’s done,” says hourly worker Bill Head, who unloads the mums from the back of the IU Campus Division trucks.

“It always looks good, baby. It’s what we do,” Bruce replies.

For weeks, the employees of Campus Division have been working at what Bruce calls “mumming,” replacing the thousands of pansies, impatiens, begonias and petunias on campus with thousands of hardier, fall-ready chrysanthemums.

Bruce and Chuck, Campus Division’s two full-time nursery assistants, pot, propagate and plant the flowers that permeate the grounds of the University. Campus Division produces 50,000 to 60,000 annuals and 7,000 chrysanthemums every year. For two hours Wednesday morning, they’re planting 14 rows of 18 mums each. To create the “I” shape, the flowers have to be packed tightly in straight rows, a task made more difficult by the diagonal downward sloping of the land.

“Is that looking straight down there to you?” Bruce calls to Bill at the bottom of the hill.

“Looks straight to me,” he replies.

“Start making another row,” Bruce says.

They plant as they talk about the Notre Dame game that Bruce has tickets for and the doughnuts they had that morning. Chuck talks less, bent over and focused on arranging the mums. When halfway done, the top of the “I” is beginning to show. On his knees, back hunched, Chuck lets out a tired sigh.

Their shadows grow shorter as they work.

***

For both men, they said there is something deeply rewarding about their work. The strike of a shovel against soft soil, dirt beneath their fingernails, and at the day’s end, a more beautiful campus.

But more rewarding than the work is the recognition.

Chuck said he enjoys “when people look at what you’re doing and tell you how nice it looks.”

The “I” is nearly finished two hours later. The bright petals stand out against the sunburned grass and the vivid green turf of the football field. Carrying mums in both hands, Bruce trips over Chuck’s foot, avoiding the flowerbed and regaining his balance. Bruce laughs.

“Whoa, I almost had mum pie.”

***

They are happy with their job and so is their boss, Campus Division Manager Mike Girvin, who oversees the maintenance of 900 acres of the University’s property.

“We’re not the prettiest group in the world,” Mike said of the 45 full-time employees of Campus Division. “We have some guys that have mowed the same patch of lawn for 30 years. But we take a lot of pride in our work.”

The finished “I” is a point of great achievement for the flower guys.

“We spent more time in front of it than watching the game,” he laughs.

With their planting at the stadium completed, they pick up the hundreds of mum-less pots and load them into the trucks. Somewhere on campus, empty beds need mums.

“I like the fact that the work’s always here,” Bruce said. “It’s like a big canvas.”