I’d like to add my opinion to this wildness vs. landscaping debate started by Joe Leonard and Kevin Lyles. (If possible, I’d like to start it again in the fall, when there will be more people to read these letters and to get involved in what I think is an important issue.)

Mr. Leonard wrote in to protest that a beautiful semi-wild area near the Memorial Union had been mowed. Mr. Lyles responded by writing that the mowing was necessary, apparently to keep the area tidy.

Keeping things tidy, removing any interesting, unusual, or beautiful thing, seems to be the main motivation behind the landscaping decisions made here at Iowa State, and indeed many other decisions as well.

When I first arrived here last fall, I walked around campus in search of interesting things. One thing I noticed was the row of trees along Union Drive, just northeast of Knoll Road. I thought they were interesting because they had very impressive, dramatic thorns growing straight out of their trunks. These things were dark reddish-brown, several inches long and viciously sharp-looking. They were beautiful, not to mention really cool.

But the next time I walked by, they were gone! Oh, the trees were still there, but someone, I assume the groundskeeping staff here at ISU, had painstakingly pruned off every thorn, leaving boring little stumps in their places.

Why? Is it the policy of the groundskeeping staff to make every tree here look exactly like every other tree, pruning off any distinguishing characteristics?

Why can’t they allow some variety? Are they so obsessed with tidiness that they’re willing to sacrifice beauty?

I noticed another example of this strange value system again this spring. It was one of the first warm, beautiful spring days of the season, so I decided to have lunch outside in the courtyard of the Agronomy building. However, the beautiful day was quickly destroyed by another one of these groundskeepers, who was using a terribly loud leafblower to remove leaves from under some bushes.

I hope he was wearing earplugs, because I’m sure that thing was loud enough to permanently damage his hearing.

I, unfortunately, had neglected to pack earplugs with my lunch, so I was forced to leave in search of less-deafening surroundings.

Why was it so important to remove every single leaf from underneath those bushes?

This guy was working ridiculously hard to remove a layer of natural mulch that, if it had simply been left alone, would have quietly decayed and added nutrients to the soil.

You could hardly even see the leaves that he was working so hard to remove, because they were so well-hidden under the bushes.

Yet he (or his supervisor) apparently thought it was such an important task that it was worth destroying the beautiful, peaceful day with the noise of a leafblower. Why do the groundskeepers here feel they have to work so hard to keep the place tidy?

Is tidiness really such a wonderful thing?

Is it more important than beauty?

Please, please, let some beauty remain. Don’t destroy it all in this obsession with tidiness.

If the groundskeepers here really like working so hard, why don’t they work at cultivating actual beauty rather than just fighting untidiness?

I’ve noticed most of the flowers they plant here are quite common ones, like impatiens and petunias.

There are many other beautiful ornamentals they could plant. How about some interesting perennials, like Japanese painted fern, variegated solomon’s seal, or columbine?

Why not grow difficult things like hybrid tea roses and dinner-plate dahlias?

Hopefully, these labor-intensive plants will keep the groundskeepers so busy they won’t have time to power up their leaf-blowers, lawn-mowers and thorn-clippers.

This tendency to value tidiness and inoffensiveness over beauty and variety is not just limited to the landscaping here at ISU.

It can be seen in the food at our cafeterias (which I tried once), carefully eliminating any flavor and any possibility that the food might be interesting.

It’s the motivation for the banning of freedom of expression on our residence hall doors and the ban on “unauthorized” protests (as if protests were supposed to be authorized, orderly and tidy!)

Wildflowers, flavor, free expression and protests would certainly make the campus more interesting and exciting, but also more untidy.

What does the ISU community really want? Tidiness or beauty? Let those of us who choose beauty do all we can to increase it on this campus.

Melissa A. Kacalanos

Graduate student

Genetics