Walters’ work in the greenhouse keeps campus beauty blooming

A traditional saying from India says the beautiful fruit is always hidden behind the leaf.

That might be the perfect way to describe Holly Walters and her duties as a groundskeeper on the Facilities Management team at Purdue University Fort Wayne. Along with her colleagues, she’s one of the reasons why the natural beauty of the campus stands out. Most winter days, Walters is tucked away in the greenhouse near the northwest corner of Kettler Hall, repotting annual plants, enticing seeds to sprout, and helping Daniel Freese, a groundskeeper crew chief, get everything organized for the spring planting.

“There’s just something about her hands, not just a green thumb, but beyond that because everything she touches grows,” said Rama Cousik, associate professor of special education who also knows her way around this realm.

Walters never realized she had a knack for plants before starting at PFW in December of 2019. She’d previously worked in corporate sales and needed a way to get out of the house when a friend suggested she apply for an open position. Though always a handy person who liked to build and fix things in her own woodshop, Walters didn’t have a garden at home.

“This was really a short-term thing for me,” Walters said.

Then Freese introduced her to the abandoned greenhouse before handing her some cone flower heads and asking if she could make them grow. Walters was so inexperienced she had no idea if she was supposed to plant the heads or the leaves. The plants died, but Jim Johnston, the other groundskeeper crew chief at PFW, encouraged Walters not to fear failure.

Walters’ interest in the job grew, and during the height of the pandemic, she took online classes with the Purdue Allen County Extension Office to qualify as a master gardener.

Today, the greenhouse is as clean and organized as a building dealing with dirt can be. Hundreds of plants are repotted every year and categorized in containers by color. Everything has a designated place, and there’s an extensive alphabetized collection of seeds. As Cousik said, any research professor would love to have Walters organize their labs.

“She cares about what grows on campus, and she wants to preserve it,” Cousik said. “She doesn’t say all that, but that’s what she is doing.”

That includes experimenting along with Freese on bananas, Mexican chili peppers, canna bulbs, and other things to plant as the weather turns warmer. Walters also orders annuals with Freese to sow after winter’s last freeze. The things she works with get healthier and flourish under her care, including people.

When Tina Grady returned to the university after an eight-year absence to become associate vice chancellor for Human Resources in May 2023, she became friends with Walters. Grady remembered thanking Walters for her efforts and mentioned how nice the campus grounds looked.

“I don’t know how you guys have done it all summer because we’ve had very little rain,” Grady said. “Campus looks amazing despite no help from Mother Nature.”

A couple of weeks later, Walters brought Grady a bag of greenhouse-grown peppers and a planter. The mixed-plants in the container were almost dead when Walters found them and nursed them back to life.

“It’s like their second coming,” Walters told Grady, “just like you came back to make things better.”

Amy Jagger, benefits director, has a similar story after helping Walters navigate her options during a lengthy injury recovery a couple of years ago. Walters rewarded her with a burro’s tail plant, which has almost taken over Jagger’s office table.

“She said she brought that from a tiny plant and always had its back the way I always had hers,” Jagger recalled. “She said, `This plant has seen some stuff, and so have I, but you’ve always gotten me through it.’”

One of Walters’ secrets is that she cultivates her compost. Walters said she can usually tell the quality of dirt by feel or smell, adding compost and mulch accordingly.

“Ten years ago, if you had talked to people who knew me, they’d have said this would be the dumbest thing I could ever do because I didn’t have the patience for it,” Walters said. “There’s so much I didn’t know then and still don’t know, but I think I like the challenge of it. I always have something to do, and I hate to not have anything to do.”