For years, the Iowa State University campus has been ranked on numerous beautiful college campus lists. However, the work that goes into keeping the campus looking how it does often occurs behind the scenes.
Landscape architecture refers to the design work that goes into outdoor areas, differentiating it from other landscaping industries, such as horticulture or gardening. Iowa State’s landscape architects are responsible for everything from planting new trees to paving sidewalks to removing snow in the winter.
All landscape architecture planning for the campus falls on the shoulders of Rhonda Martin and Joe Stoberl, who are both employed as landscape architects under Facilities Planning and Management.
“If you’re gonna design a building, you would go to an architect, but a lot of people don’t think of designing outside,” Stoberl said. “Generally, we’re the outside designers.”
The responsibilities of the university’s landscape architects are split evenly, with Martin focusing more on plants, or “softscape,” and Stoberl handling “hardscape” matters, like sidewalks, patios and signage. They both manage the approximately two-acre on-campus cemetery as well.
“Really, this is like a little city here,” Stoberl said. “And we’re kind of a staff… operating in public works.”
“We work really hard with the university architect,” Martin said, “Who helps direct us to make sure that there’s an overall thought-out character to the outdoor landscape [so] that you know you’re on campus once you walk on, and you know when you leave campus.”
In addition to what Stoberl called “regular work,” the pair of them are also part of the Facilities Design and Construction group, where they will get assigned projects from other departments. Sometimes, this means being involved in efforts to relocate a building, where they are tasked with doing a cost estimate, as well as minor construction administration when the project gets built.
“We kind of have a little bit of instruction in a lot of different things,” Martin said. “And so we’re trying to pull the site together. Usually the architect gets to put the building on the site. And that’s the building. But you can’t ignore the site. And what happens when you cross that invisible boundary between that site and the next site? We’re the ones that try and make it happen sort of seamlessly.”
Martin and Stoberl also help manage Facilities Planning and Management’s year-round groundskeepers, and as the weather changes, so do their duties.
“Now that it’s getting nicer out, I bet they’re out there doing a little more leaf clearing, and then there’ll be re-mulching,” Martin said. “And then once the grass starts growing, and we start getting plant material… they’ll switch to that. They do leaf removal in the fall. And then, when it’s not snowing in the winter, they do a lot of pruning operations.”
Projects are funded through the department they are requested through, which are funded by tuition, with some additional monetary help from the state. For example, the 360 trees that will soon be planted at CYTown are funded by the athletic department.
For projects that don’t have direct department connections, such as road and sidewalk repairs, the funding comes from the state, and a portion comes from the tuition.
With Iowa State University’s over 12,500 trees, including 276 planted in 2023, a large portion of Martin’s responsibilities revolve around Iowa State’s involvement in Tree Campus Higher Education, formerly known as Tree Campus USA. This is a national program “that honors colleges and universities for promoting healthy management of their campus forests and for engaging the community in environmental stewardship,” according to their website.
“Our challenges right now are the drought,” Martin said. “This year, we’re gonna plant 360 new trees down there at CYTown. And in the last couple of years, we’ve planted, I don’t know, over [300] or 400 trees around the stadium because of the stadium project, the bridge across University [Boulevard], the new RV parking lot. And Mother Nature is not helping us because they need to be watered and it gets so hot and dry. And then our crews, instead of doing other landscape things they… have to stop what they’re doing and water.”
During the 2023 calendar year, the campus tree care program spent approximately $920,576, with $299,132 (about one-third) spent on tree planting and initial care and $618,215 on management costs for existing trees on campus.
Those interested can look at a list and map of all of Iowa State’s plants on the Facilities Planning and Management website.
