Campus greenhouse allows students a chance at a green thumb

Bob Garner walks down an aisle of plants in the Churchill-Haines greenhouse, checking individual leaves to make sure the plants are healthy.

The 52-year-old has been around gardens for most of his life, and for the last two and a half years he’s been the caretaker of the greenhouse on campus.

“We’ve got some plants that we call resident plants that stay here year-round,” Garner said. “(They’re) the ones that are used to help teach classes — you can’t just go out and buy them because it takes a while for them to get the size they need.”

Garner said the greenhouse is usually used to grow plants for research for various biology classes.

“This year we’ll have about 50 or so (students). Last year was a little higher, it goes up and down with the size of the classes,” Garner said.

Garner said he first started working at the University of South Dakota eight years ago as a custodian. When the position of laboratory storekeeper opened up, Garner decided to apply for it. 

“I thought it looked interesting, so I put in for it, and I got in,” Garner said.

Now, every morning during the week, Garner comes into the greenhouse and takes care of the plants for one to five hours, depending on the day and the season.

“Some of them I have to water every day, and some are every other day. Some are just once a week,” Garner said. “I give them a little shot of fertilizer when they need it to keep them good and healthy.”

Usually kept at a humid 66 degrees fahrenheit, the greenhouse is heated with hot water. Garner said the most challenging part of taking care of the building is keeping the pests away. Spiders, white flies and birds can damage the plants. Some if it might cause contamination, so it is better to reach out to companies and ask for bird proofing spikes to avoid and worsen the issues.

“The white fly gets a resistance (to chemicals), and it’s kind of a pain,” Garner said.

At the end of the day, he said the rewards outweigh the challenges.

“The rewarding part is watching the students complete their projects and the looks on their faces,” Garner said. “Some of these students have never planted a seed before in their life. Whether it be a garden seed or a research seed or whatever — (for) some of them it turns out to be a pretty big deal.”

As Garner walks the aisles of plants, senior Don Doeckes, who is majoring in sustainability, is at the opposite end of the greenhouse planting seeds for a Monarch Butterfly garden.

“The Monarch Butterflies, they’re potentially going to be listed as an endangered species because their milkweed and the plants they like to eat are being affected by the pesticides and stuff from agriculture,” Doeckes said. “We’re trying to plant some plants for them to eat off of.”

Karen Koster, the associate chair of biology, said the greenhouse has been a part of Churchill-Haines since at least 1992. For the last six years she has required her students to use it for her classes.

“The students begin in January thinking about hypotheses they would like to test. They then develop a hypothesis and at some point we have to get plants,” Koster said. “Since it’s South Dakota and it’s the spring semester, usually growing them outside isn’t going to work too well so we get plants that we can grow in the greenhouse.”

Doeckes said he had never been in the greenhouse before, but said he thought it was a good thing to have.

“I think it’s really underutilized — I think we could benefit from it a lot more than we actually do,” he said. “I hope students in the future will use it more.”

Koster said without the greenhouse, many experiments would not be possible.

“We wouldn’t be able to do it,” she said. “You can only grow so many things on a window sill, and it just wouldn’t work.”

(Photo: Bob Garner, laboratory storekeeper and the caretaker of the Churchill-Haines greenhouse, inspects cacti Feb. 10. Garner said about 50 students will use the greenhouse this semester. Malachi Petersen / The Volante)