Daylilies and petunias bloom next to a bench in Holcomb Gardens

Description:	Junipers, daylilies, and petunias are next to a bench in Holcomb Gardens and yews are in the foreground. When Butler University moved to its current Fairview campus in 1928, the Department of Botany established the Botanical Gardens in the northwest corner of campus. The gardens included a variety of plants from around the world. Approximately two decades later, some reports claimed the gardens had become ill kept and disorderly. Around the same time, there was an effort to beautify the campus as the University looked toward 1955, its centennial year. An avid gardener, J. I. Holcomb, who had been serving on the University’s board of directors and its buildings and grounds committee since 1936, felt the roughly 15 acres of gardens had more potential and they should be laid out in an orderly, formal fashion. Although Willard N. Clute, director of the gardens and botany instructor, wanted to preserve this area of campus as a wilderness, Holcomb’s wishes prevailed. Working with Arthur F. Lindberg, the Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds, Holcomb developed the formal gardens, repeatedly gifting money and plants for the project. In The Butler Collegian article, “Botanical Gardens Flourish Under Holcomb Guidance,” Betty Greene wrote that Holcomb’s “wholehearted enthusiasm in his new capacity soon caused the university to recognize him as the patron of the gardens and appropriately named the area the James Irving Holcomb Botanical Gardens” (1953, November 11, p. 1). On June 10, 1950, the Persephone statue was unveiled in the gardens and Holcomb continued to add plants and other features, including the lake, the Garden House, and poet’s corner. “Visitors come from far and near, and the gardens’ popularity reaches a peak in the spring, summer and fall months when they’re decked in full splendor. Some 10,000 daffodils combine with crab tree blossoms to form acres of colorful floral pageantry. Thousands of lilacs, lilies, peonies, poppies and gladioli line the east and west sides of the 500-foot grass mall that leads into the heart of the garden area” (Greene).
Source:	http://palni.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/BldgsGrnds/id/2074
Collection:	Butler University Buildings and Grounds Collection
Rights:	http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
Copyright:	In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
Geography:	Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, 39.844534, -86.170737 39.844534 -86.170737
Subjects:	Daylilies Petunias Benches Flowers Plants Shrubs Trees Butler University--History Indianapolis (Ind.)--History Holcomb Gardens James Irving Holcomb Botanical Gardens Bushes Fairview campus

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