Just as a wide array of students can be found in Ohio University’s residence halls, one building on campus houses a different type of life: the plant variety.
Students and faculty with green thumbs can visit OU’s greenhouse, which is located at the Botanical Research building near Morton Hall and Scott Quad.
In 2011, the greenhouse was home to more than 650 plants, but the number has risen recently, said Harold Blazier, greenhouse manager. He estimated the current inventory to be “literally in the thousands.”
The 4,756-square-foot greenhouse has a two-acre garden and is home to plants from six continents.
Some plants are more difficult to obtain than others, Blazier said.
“The easiest way we get the plants is to barter, swap or trade with different universities,” he said. “We also trade with conservatories or breeders. Also, accessibility in getting the plant is a factor that plays in.”
The plants and flowers are rotated throughout the year to cater to nutritional and environmental needs, and each of the rooms in the greenhouse is set to a specific temperature to mimic the plants’ natural habitat, Blazier said.
The majority of the greenhouse funding is through the College of Arts and Sciences; there is a $4,000 operating cost budget, he said.
“Usually that money goes toward soil, pots and fertilizers,” he added.
Harry Wyatt, associate vice president of Facilities, said during a conference call that he did not know how much it costs to maintain the greenhouse.
“It isn’t a typical building at all, and it isn’t insulated, so the utility cost would be skewed,”he said.
John Elmore, a senior studying plant biology, has studied in the greenhouse and said the building is falling into disrepair. He expressed interest in a
new greenhouse.
“I have to say this greenhouse has been around and has served its purpose,” he said. “I’d like to see a new one with even more resources or expand on the ones we have..”
The existing greenhouse is “aged and its structural, mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems are all deteriorating beyond the point of repair,” according to the Dec. 9, 2011 OU Capital Improvement Plan.
Since the greenhouse was built in the 1970s, the infrastructure has become old and needs repair, said Brian McCarthy, chair of the environmental and plant
biology department.
A new greenhouse was proposed in 2011 and will cost $3.4 million to build. The project will be funded through debt and distributed by “relocating base budget,” according to the plan.
McCarthy said the target date for completion of the greenhouse is 2015.
However, Wyatt said he believed the new greenhouse might be finished later
than that.
“We haven’t hired a consultant to design, it but we recognize that it is an aged facility and is approaching the time where it does need replacing,” he said.
McCarthy said the greenhouse is important not only to students, but to the Athens area as a whole.
“The greenhouse has year-long tours, garden groups, Boy Scouts and middle schools that visit it,”McCarthy said. “This is a community value beyond what we use for the university. We can show kids different plants from different parts of the world. I don’t know what we’d do without a greenhouse.”
hy135010@ohiou.edu
