Environmental issues continue to be a hot topic nationwide and Reiman Gardens is hoping to educate and alert people about resource sustainability right here in Iowa.

Reiman Gardens recently received a grant from Iowa State that made it possible to create a new tour concerning environmentally friendly resources found in plants. Aaron Steil, a Reiman Gardens employee who helped develop the tour, said it is important to educate others on what biofuel plants look like and what it means to be carbon-neutral, as well as how they can help in the future.

Starting this week at Reiman Gardens, the walking tour allows people to learn more about sustainable, environmentally friendly plants.

In the tour, individuals are handed a garden tour map and then encouraged to walk to different set stations throughout the gardens. These station sites are located where biofuel plants are placed. Arriving at a station, one calls the Reiman Gardens office, which transfers the call to another station that discusses the plant you are currently visiting.

The newly implemented sustainable rose garden will be a highlighted exhibition on display.

Although corn is obviously displayed as a plant that generates ethanol, there are others as well.

“Right now we do things well with corn but there are other more friendly and sustainable products to be found elsewhere,” Steil said.

Another example of a biofuel plant is switchgrass. Publicly, little is known about its environmental capabilities and what it looks like. Steil, although applauding work with corn and ethanol, is confident resources such as switchgrass could possibly be even more successful than corn’s ethanol.

Steil’s motivation to begin such a process was fueled by an initiative to find plants that are a good producer of biomass. Steil said biomass is used to create ethanol and bio diesels, among other applications.

“Biomass turns into biofuel but there are more applications to be used,” he said.

These other resources include fibers, petroleum products and new chemicals.

David Grewell, assistant professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering, is currently researching biofuels and bioplastics at Iowa State. He is looking for environmentally friendly ways to use biorenewable resources.

Currently, he is working on multiple studies. Grewell is trying to find out if the energy used to take ethanol out of corn and process it is worthwhile, or if another technique -possibly with less energy use – is even better.

Another research study Grewell is working on with an agronomy professor could potentially be quite useful for gardeners and places such as Reiman Gardens in the future. The two are working to find a plastic pot that, when inserted into the ground with the plant could then progressively deteriorate in a nonwasteful way.

Pots such as these would not only make planting flowers and plants take less time and be easier, but they also would prevent unnecessary wasteful pot disposal.

“What we are doing now are just stepping stones to what the future brings,” Grewell said, when pondering what the future holds. He believes by then we will have more knowledge and technology to make products that help the environment.

Steil and Reiman Gardens are starting to conserve. Steil said Reiman Gardens has recently refocused its mission by looking into how it can be more sustainable and environmentally friendly. This includes how it cares for plants, as well as how it cleans, uses electricity, and how it reuses office products.

In its new rose garden, roses are less dependent on water and physical care. Also, the staff is using much less paper and other products that usually are not recycled.

In the tours available now and through the future, guests will be asked to returned pamphlets after their tour is done. This way, more printing for new tour guest will be eliminated, saving paper.

“All aspects of our development fit into our new mission to be environmentally friendly,” Steil said.