The Iowa Stater
November 2000
How this garden grows
Forget the silver bells and cockleshells. Iowa State's Reiman Gardens is sowing the seeds for a new $9.6 million construction project billed as a "garden under glass." Adjacent to the existing Mahlstede Center and slated for a fall 2002 completion, the addition will include a conservatory, butterfly house, greenhouses, cafe, auditorium and gift shop. Officials estimate the conservatory will draw 250,000 visitors a year.
Construction also began last summer on two more gardens at the Reiman site - the Town and Country Garden and Arboretum Garden. The Town and Country Garden will feature 12 idea gardens appropriate for home landscaping. The garden will demonstrate uses for different types of flowers, trees and shrubs, and offer options for garden pathways, decks and walls. "Ideas" include a front yard garden, outdoor living room, suburban back yard, paving court, walled court and naturalist garden.
The Arboretum Garden will replicate, on a smaller scale, the banks along a river where eroded soil exposes rocky cliffs and unusual plants flourish. A limestone wall, with water seeping through, will simulate the combination of water and rock. The garden also will have a dry upland area.