News

In the coming weeks, construction will begin on the former site of Regent’s parking lot (learn more). As a result, we’ll be bidding a fond farewell to the garden area on the south side of Regent’s campus. We spoke to Julie Lane Gay—a Regent alumna, Summer faculty member, and master gardener—about the fate of these beloved plants.

While the development on our former parking lot will help address Regent's student housing needs, there are certainly some tough goodbyes involved in this transition. Many alumni and friends of the College are sad about losing the garden space south of our building—particularly the wisteria. As someone who loves plants, and Regent, how are you thinking about it?

I am always sad to see good plants go—particularly ones that have cheered me year after year. The wisteria, rhododendrons, iris, and spurges have been wonderful welcomers to people coming into our building. I planted many of them, so it’s been great to see them flourish.

The loss of the wisteria is hard. I’ve received many emails and texts wondering how we could save or propagate it. And while it is a beautiful wisteria that smells fantastic (should I say “heavenly”?) when it’s in bloom it is not rare or hard to obtain—it is an exceptionally common Wisteria floribunda. Preserving this particular plant would cost between $3,000 and $4,000, and would involve digging it up with a small crane, containerizing it, and keeping it healthy for years while it waited for a new home. By contrast, we could buy the same species of wisteria—a very large one that would cover an arbour in five years—for about $100. As seriously I take rescuing plants, I don’t think it is worth the College saving this one.

If anyone particularly loves the wisteria, is there a way they could start one at home? Collect seeds? Are there seeds?

The three most common ways you propagate wisteria are by seed, cuttings, and layering. None of these methods have a great success rate (the video below gives a bit more hope), but anyone can try! At the risk of being a pessimist, a fully grown wisteria is a huge, hefty plant. It can climb to thirty feet and weigh hundreds of pounds. Not many of us have space for a plant like that. However, if anyone wants to try cuttings, you can find an explanation (just one among many options) here.

What about the other plants in that garden? Anything we can do to save them?

That’s the good news. We are going to move what we can over to the west library garden—hopefully this will include the rhododendrons, roses, masterwort (a great perennial), lady’s mantle, daffodils, iris, and ground covers. This will provide a very welcome splash of beauty and colour in another key part of campus.

Those plants which we can’t fit in, we will be offering for free to good homes. Please come dig some up! I have had amazingly good luck with craigslist’s “For Free” listings. I once dug up a big garden and put it on craigslist, and more than 90 plants were gone in an hour. People were thrilled and grateful to give loving homes to these plants, and I’m confident that we’ll see the same thing here.

Thanks so much, Julie. We appreciate your willingness to share your expertise, as well as your ongoing work to care for the Regent community—both people and plants!