Wichita State University is known for its iconic tulip beds across campus during the spring – especially around the beloved Millie the millipede statue near the Ulrich Museum of Art.
But to make that happen, the university’s landscaping crew begins its work on the tulip beds in October.
“So this year we’re planting just over 9,000 bulbs,” said Lowell Kaufman, a landscape supervisor at WSU.
To get the tulips lined up in a pattern, the crew pounds stakes into the ground and threads strings across them to set up a grid.
Before the crew even gets to this point, it has to pull and preserve some of the native plants the crew tended to during the summer. Then, the crew tills the garden bed and moistens it for planting.
“It's about a … probably six-week process between when we start pulling stuff out to finish tulip planting, depending on the weather,” Kaufman said.
Tulips on Wichita State’s campus have been a tradition since the 1970s. Planting the bulbs in October allows time for the bulbs to root.
“It's kind of like a seasonal cue to the bulb to say like, ‘Hey, … you've made it through the winter, now it's warming up, it's time for you to put on your blooms,’” said Cass Standley, a member of the landscaping crew.
Different areas of campus have their own traditional tulip colors. Red tulips are always planted around Millie; yellow for some of the entrances onto campus, which also happens to be one of the school colors.
But the crew also likes to find different varieties to try from its supplier in Holland.
“We know which ones do well where,” Kaufman said, “but … we're trying out a couple of new varieties this year.”
Experimenting and learning is part of the job. Most of the people helping to plant near the entrances this year are new, including Standley.
“I was working an office job, and I was like, ‘Man, I kind of just want to be outside. I want to like, be active and spend more time … around plants, around nature,’” Standley said.
Standley is a graduate of Wichita State with a degree in strategic communications.
“As someone who went to school here, that was one of the things that stuck with me was … all the plants, like the landscaping is always so beautiful,” she said. “And so, I think I even said that in my interview, that that was one of the things that drew me here was I just remember how good it looked. And I want to work with plants.”
Dallas Bowman works alongside Kaufman and Standley. She said she’s only been on the job for a couple of months. Before joining the landscaping team, she was stationed at McConnell Air Force Base.
“It's kind of therapeutic working with the plants,” Bowman said. “I mean, I kind of felt like I was a little dumb at first because they're like, ‘Put it by the hosta.’ I'm like, ‘What's a hosta?’ They're like, ‘This plant right here.’”
Bowman’s parents were also in the military, which means she lived in several different states and countries growing up. She said working with the tulips reminds her of those times.
“I actually grew up in Europe, I was a military brat,” Bowman said. “So we did go see the tulips in bloom on vacation one time, and there's like … a deep red (tulip) and that just kind of reminds me a little bit of home because I'm from New Mexico. So, like the deep red sunsets over the mountainside.”
As for Kaufman, he’s been with the university for years. He said the newer faces and people he works with have an impact.
“When the new students come on campus, it's like it's a new world to them. And it's fun to see,” he said.
“I guess … as I get older, it makes me feel younger being around … young people that are probably like grandkids, for sure, maybe even great-grandkids age almost.”
