Groundskeepers keep UI campus well-groomed

IOWA CITY -- Thousands of people traverse the University of Iowa campus on any given day. That's thousands of eyes looking at the grass, the bushes, the flowers, the sidewalks.

For any homeowner who feels judged when the grass gets a bit long, imagine tending 160 acres of turf and flower beds.

“What we're trying to promote is image,” said grounds supervisor Shawn Fitzpatrick. “You want to have an attractive campus for students and prospective students.”

UI Landscape Services, with a staff of 36 full-time employees, is responsible for pretty much everything outdoors on campus: repairing university roads and sidewalks, planting and pruning trees and flowers, picking up litter, removing snow and ice, weeding, pruning shrubs, mulching and mowing, mowing and more mowing.

“Summer is busier because there's a lot more to do,” said Scott Gritsch, Landscape Services manager.

Of the 1,900 acres that comprise the UI campus, 160 acres are managed turf, meaning lawn that must be mowed and landscaped.

When it's not raining, there likely is mowing happening somewhere on campus by the seven-person mowing crew. The mowing schedule moves, from east to west, Monday to Friday, April to November. It's usually time to start over again on the east side of campus when Monday rolls around, Fitzpatrick said.

Frequent rain, as in recent weeks, can keep crews from their mowing rounds. When that happens, they find other things to do, like picking up litter and branches, or trimming shrubs.

A June 18 storm brought high winds and knocked down hundreds of branches across campus that workers were still picking up a week later. The campus lost 15 to 20 large trees in that storm, Gritsch said.

“It was pretty bad,” he said.

Landscape Services groundskeepers are assigned to specific areas of campus. Groundskeeper Joel Smith, 44, tends the Pentacrest. He prefers summer to winter and likes working on the high-traffic Pentacrest. Though during football season, it does mean working Sundays to clean up extra litter and occasionally vomit.

“(The Pentacrest is) the most visible area,” said Smith, of Tipton. “I've learned that when all the students are here, there's times when you just have to get out of the way. In between class changes, you just pull over and wait, because they don't move for our stuff.”

Large flower beds on the Pentacrest, at the president's residence, west of Old Capitol and in the nursing circle get changed three times during growing seasons. First come tulip and daffodil bulbs for spring, annuals for summer and finally mums for autumn.

UI groundskeepers plant about 7,000 annuals and several thousand bulbs each year - all bought from local greenhouses.

Groundskeeper Brian Hester does flower installation. Hester, 35, said he heard the occasional negative comment last year about budget cuts and the cost of flowers while he was planting. So he decided to keep a tally of comments this year.

“Sixty-seven good comments and zero negative,” said Hester, of rural Williamsburg. “A lot of people say, ‘It looks great.' There are a lot of campus visits, and some parents will say things like, ‘This looks like a park.' ”

Landscape Services has a budget of about $2.1 million. About $20,000 of that is for flowers and shrubs for the entire campus, Gritsch said.

“People like to see the color in front of the Old Capitol,” he said. “It's a tradition.”