Rebecca Arrington

Off the beaten path

While many people are familiar with the gardens between the pavilions and the ranges, there are other garden spots on Grounds that are especially attractive now with warm weather bringing out the flowers. Several landscaping employees from Facilities Management recommended spots on Grounds that might provide a momentary getaway from the end-of-semester rush.

The gardens at Carr’s Hill include lawns and sitting areas as well as a variety of flowers and shrubs.

Behind Clemons Library, next to Miller Hall, there is a quiet nook with a cherry tree and azaleas. There is another quiet niche on the south side of the Bayly Museum, with azaleas and flowering magnolias.

The garden on Monroe Hill contains five varieties of tulips, daylilies, bee balm and sedum and soon there will be plantings of cosmos and zinnias. Its shrubs include winter daphne, butterfly bush, candytuft, red bud, mock orange and a few azaleas.
Both the Commerce and Engineering schools have interior courtyards. Thornton Hall’s is complete with picnic tables and a lawn. The courtyard garden at Monroe Hall is graced with hollies, crepe myrtles and deciduous magnolias, as well as viburnums, hostas and pachysandra ground cover.

The University has an arboretum at Morea house, at the end of Sprigg Lane. There is large collection of trees, including American Linden, osage oranges thought to have been brought back by Lewis and Clark, Carolina hornbean (also known as musclewood), pearl bush (which is covered with white flowers), a Japanese tree lilac (which carries lavender blooms), tree peonies, thorny eleagnus (a bushy ornamental used for shade), and a variety of lilacs. There is also a peony bed with star magnolia.

Even the traditional gardens can hold surprises. In the garden at Pavilion III there is a muse with ornamental honeysuckle and climbing hydrangeas, as well as a small area with a few flowers.

Behind Pavilion VIII there are two hidden gardens, not visible until a visitor enters them, shielded from view by walls and tall, English boxwood hedges. The hidden gardens have a variety of plants, including pansies, native columbine, annual poppies, crocus, daffodils, hyacinth, speedwell, peonies, daylilies, aster, mallow, perennial phlox, climbing rose trumpet vine, willowleaf and sunflowers.