A team of staff and students have been working all winter to prepare the beautiful plants for spring commencement.
Campus horticulturist Angie Girdham along with three students — senior Natalie Mckee, junior Molly Smith, and sophomore Andrea Bodary — work at the greenhouse at Hayden Park to grow flowers that make Hillsdale’s campus more aesthetically beautiful.
While students’ families prepare for the journey to Hillsdale, excited for the graduation of their loved ones, the self-titled “Cam- pus Beautification Crew” digs, plants, and prunes around campus to ensure Hillsdale’s landscape reflects the beauty of the moment.
At the greenhouse, preparations for commencement begin in the winter months. Seeds are start- ed in seed trays early enough to give the plants time to grow be- fore being transferred to larger pots, where they will mature be- fore arriving at their adult homes around campus. Girdham uses yearly records she has kept since taking her current position in 2004 to determine when to plant each seed.
Girdham’s records show the number of weeks each type of seed takes to become fully-grown in the greenhouse. Girdham said keeping her own records is necessary because plants never grow uniformly across different green- houses. Factors of the environment outside of the greenhouse can affect a plant’s growth for which a greenhouse cannot compensate.
According to Girdham, Hills- dale’s horticulture department grows more than 80 varieties of plants from seed or a mother plant. A piece of the mother plant acts as a donor and is cut off and planted to create a copy of the original. Seed growth takes longer and involves sowing and trans- planting the seedling as it grows and demands more space.
This is the greenhouse’s first year at Hayden Park. It was moved last year from a plot just north of Simpson to make room for the Searle Center parking lot.
McKee said moving the green- house was an improvement over- all. The greenhouse gained access to hot water and improved ventilation and heating systems to help regulate the environment. It also expanded and added an under- bench heating system for seed trays, providing extra protection for the tiny plants against changes in temperature.
The move, however, has caused a problem other than a longer com- mute for the horticultural department.
Smith said when the green- house was moved, the water source changed from city water to well water. Because well water isn’t subject to the same amount of filtration that city water has, Hayden Park’s water has caused algae to grow in some of the seed trays and pots. It’s a problem for which Smith constantly watches, removing the algae whenever she spots it
In addition to embellishing cam- pus, the horticulture department also uses the greenhouse to grow and tend plants such as tomatoes and basil that are sold in the Arboretum’s plant sale every year.
While working in the soil with these tiny plants, the members of Hillsdale’s horticulture department said they love seeing the products of their labor add color and beauty to the campus.
“I like being around the plants, especially in the dead of winter,” Smith said. “Everything is alive and watching a seed grow that you planted with your own hands is amazing.”
“I’ve been doing this for 25 years and it’s still a miracle,” Girdham added.
