Iowa State students can now visit the new Reiman Gardens — in full bloom.

The gardens are located south of Cyclone Stadium to make the entrance to the Iowa State Center more welcoming, said Linda Naeve, director of the gardens.

Roy Reiman, a publisher and 1957 ISU graduate in agriculture journalism, and his wife donated $1.3 million in January, 1993, to have the gardens built. ISU raised an additional $700,000 from private donors. Construction of the Reiman Gardens began during the summer of 1994.

In conjunction with the gardens, an educational center called the John P. Mahlstede Horticulture Learning Center was built on the grounds. It was named after a former head of the ISU Department of Horticulture and a former associate dean of the College of Agriculture.

Construction of the Learning Center was completed in April, when planting for the gardens began.

The site will be officially dedicated to ISU Sept. 16 at 10 a.m., before the Iowa State-Iowa football game, Naeve said.

“A lot of the dignitaries, the Board of Regents and the private donors will be there,” she said.

The gardens are maintained by the Reiman Garden CoHorts, a volunteer auxiliary that helps promote the site by fund raising and conducting personal tours.

“It’s an educational facility for the horticulture, landscape architecture and plant sciences,” Naeve said.

Yesterday, a 50-foot Campanile was erected on the east part of the site. The steel structure includes bell chimes to provide music for special events.

A curved walking bridge marks the entrance to Reiman Gardens. A courtyard takes visitors into the the Learning Center, which is made of limestone walls with cedar siding inside and outside the building.

West of the Learning Center are 20 flower beds that decorate a small green pasture.

Lemon Verbena, Sweet Annie and English Thyme help make up the diverse array of plant life in an herb garden, one of the site’s many offerings.

Before the entrance to the rose garden is a spherical sundial above a structure decorated in zodiac signs and astrological symbols.

The sundial stands in the middle of an octagon filled with various small plantings.

A cathedral entrance to the rose garden leads visitors toward a small fountain.

A mini-waterfall plunges from the fountain into a stream banked with stones which follows the length of the rose garden.