Campus Greenhouse Is an Oasis for Flora, Fauna, and Feathers

By Alexandra Wilson

For those still recovering from the long and snowy winter, UMass Boston's greenhouse on the fourth floor of the Science Center offers a welcoming retreat. Its verdant atmosphere and sultry heat are a sure cure for winter gloom. In addition to a multitude of plants, you'll also find the gregarious Jim Allen, who manages the greenhouse.

Allen provides a nurturing space for the plants and animals that live in the greenhouse, which consists of three separate growing environments. Tropical plants, indigenous to Central and South America, live in the rainforest environment.

"If you were here at night," says Allen, "you might see a lizard or hear a tree frog."

Citrus and other plants that are found in regions like Florida grow in the temperate greenhouse, and cacti and succulents live in the arid environment.

Biology students extend their learning outside the classroom by gaining hands-on experience in the greenhouse. Allen helps them study the evolution of plants by comparing living ferns to ancient fern fossils, or gives them greater understanding of the difference between cacti and succulents.

To assist him, Allen has a staff of four work-study students. He believes that a paycheck isn't the only benefit to working in the greenhouse.

"Plants contribute to their mental well-being," he says of his assistants.

It's not only biology students who get to enjoy the peaceful warmth of the greenhouse. All are welcomed to visit the greenhouse to learn, explore, or just to relax. Art students often visit to sketch the plants, and much of their work is exhibited on the greenhouse's website.

"People can just come up and sit on a milk crate and read," Allen says.

Since he began managing the greenhouse in 1996, Allen has contributed knowledge and care to the campus and UMass Boston community. He teams with Biology Department faculty in research projects, such as a study of bumblebee hawkmoths with Professor Richard White. Allen also uses as few pesticides as possible. Instead, he uses a technique called integrated pest management, where certain insects, such as ladybugs, eat harmful insects.

Most recently, Allen has been working with the grounds department to add beautiful plants outdoors and to maintain them over the summer. Many of the plants Allen uses are gifts from the Ball Seed Company. Allen chooses hearty plants that can last from early spring until the first frost, as well as several varieties of ornamental grasses, which are not only beautiful, but attract nesting birds. Allen and the greenhouse staff are responsible, too, for all the potted plants brightening the corridors and catwalks inside. The camellias, which are used to make tea, boast pink flowers that give a burst of color to dull winter days.

Allen also takes care of the lab animals, and the greenhouse is abuzz with activity. Tadpoles and South African Xenopus frogs, studied in cell and developmental biology, scuttle around tanks. Cockatiels flutter and chirp about the room.

Allen often rescues birds, perhaps Harborpoint escapees, from outside. Other birds are gifts. Professor Rebecca Saunders of the English Department gave Allen a pair of cockatiels. Another pair, from Biology department staff member Jan Raymondi, just had babies. "These cockatiels are the greenhouse mascots," Allen says.

This winter has walloped Boston with record snowfall, but you'd never know it in the greenhouse. Allen says he hopes to begin work outside by the end of April.

"I'm looking forward to spring and planting flowers."

Image: Jim Allen, manager of the greenhouse, displays oranges grown far from Florida farms to faculty and staff during convocation activities in the fall 2002. (Photo by Harry Brett)

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