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People, Plants and Purdue
 By Nancy Alexander
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Mary Welch-Keesey—Purdue Extension's consumer horticulture specialist at the White River Gardens Resource Center. (Photo by Tom Campbell) |
In butterfly terms, White River Gardens in downtown Indianapolis is a chrysalis--a shell in which great changes have occurred, its full form becoming recognizable as it emerges according to plan and full of promise.
Established two years ago, the value of the gardens has been enhanced by a partnership with Purdue Extension that places a full-time Extension consumer horticulture specialist at the Dick Crum Resource Center at the site.
"I'm really a problem-solver," explains Mary Welch-Keesey,the center's first professional horticulturist and educator. "What's the plant?" "What's the bug?" "How do we get the kids into the resource center?"
Cooperation between Purdue and the Indianapolis Zoological Society's White River Gardens grew from long-standing interest in both camps, according to Edward Ashworth, professor and head of Purdue's Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture. Even before the gardens were constructed, Indianapolis Zoo officials viewed Purdue as a resource for unbiased information and expertise, Ashworth notes. Purdue in turn saw the potential of disseminating horticultural information from a high-profile facility in the state capital and media center.
Appropriately, the resource center's name honors a Purdue alumnus and Extension specialist. Although Dick Crum has retired as Extension educator in Marion County, he continues to offer gardening advice to Indiana residents through a newspaper column and on radio and television. On Saturdays from April to October, Crum fields questions in the facility that bears his name.
Like Crum, Welch-Keesey is a product of Purdue Agriculture. A native of the oil town of Ponca City, Okla., she launched her "first career" in biochemistry after completing a doctoral degree at Rice University. The former manager of new product development at Boehringer Mannheim Corp. (now Roche Molecular Systems) says her second career began "when we bought a house with a birdbath in the yard." Filling the birdbath several times daily and observing the activity on her property sparked interest in attracting birds and butterflies. That, in turn, led Welch-Keesey to the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture and a master of science degree in May 2000. While working on her degree, she gained research and teaching experience.
After just one year on the job at White River Gardens, Welch-Keesey continues to study and to learn, even as she applies her Purdue teaching skills. "I'm amazed at how much I've picked up," she says. "And when I'm not sure how to handle something, I always go back to the basic sciences--botany, entomology, soils. You start to be able to tie everything together."
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