By: Kimberley Smith
“Whatever progress you may see, (in the plant life at TCC) may be accredited to me, but it shouldn’t be. If it wasn’t for those six men who help me, it wouldn’t be done,” Glen Rose, grounds supervisor said. “They deserve a tremendous amount of credit and appreciation.”
Modest or not, Rose deserves a round of applause for helping to beautify the TCC campus. He is working on a five-year program for campus beautification.
Rose retired from the nursery business in November three years ago. He was the landscape architect at Twitty Nursery for 32 years. Before working at Twitty, he served in the military. He attended Arkansas Tech at Russellville and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
“I enjoy my work very much,” he said. “It’s not a work that makes a rich man out of you very quickly. The wealth is from seeing the beauty of nature. It is quite a rewarding field for the viewpoint if you enjoy growing things.”
On the average, Rose has a six-man crew and a foreman. A lot of the work they do is “housekeeping. We go along behind everybody and clean up after them.”
The crew is making some changes now because the EMP building is being built, according to Rose. They try to make a foundation of permanent plants to give a nice effect 12 months of the year.
In the spring, according to Rose, after Easter, annuals will be put in the borders until the frost. Then, “We’ll have to go in and put pansies for winter and spring,” he said. They change out the color beds twice a year. “We are trying to increase the permanent plant life with berries for color and to attract birds on campus,” he said.
One of the projects for next spring is the planting of 25 shade trees. They will be trees like maple with fall color and will be nice shade trees for campus beauty, according to Rose.
They are also increasing the number of rose bushes. “Quite often, we have beautiful roses until Christmas. Even though they’re color plants, they are permanent,” he said.
With a small crew and 40+ acres to maintain and improve, the schedule and progress is slow, he said. Sometimes in one of our crew’s 40 hours a week, 30-35 of that may be housekeeping, Rose said.
“We were set back tremendously by last December’s freeze. With another year’s growth, the plants will return to good appearance,” he said. Another project coming up for the crew is the development of the library once it is completed. “We plan to have the campus quite a show place with another two seasons,” he said.
In his spare time, Rose enjoys tinkering with carpentry work, fishing, hunting, (and, yes) he likes to work with a lot of flowers around the house. It’s like gardening.
“I like to see nature come alive in the spring and all the color in the fall. I like to see the tremendous power of our Maker to give beauty throughout the year,” Rose said.
“It’s very enjoyable. It’s not like punching a clock. Your work stays with you.”
His father was a wide-range horticulturalist, so Rose got his love for the field honestly. He studied it in college and after World War II, he came back and went into it exclusively, he said.
“I’ve been kidded a lot about my name. I’ve been in Texarkana for 32 years, and they say I have a very appropriate name for the nursery business. It’s a great plant. That’s why we’re trying to rearrange, regroup and increase the number of rose bushes,” Rose said.
“We try to set them where the administration, chemistry, nursing, biology, EMP can see a mass of roses to enjoy. They’re a colorful plant from after Easter for a long time during the year,” he said.
Here in Texas the long periods of rainy weather makes it hard to keep them sprayed and the black spots off of them, he said. “Roses are one of the best plants for color in America because they continuously bloom.”
Glen Rose and his crew are making the trip from class to class a little more enjoyable. Of his crew he said, “They are a good group of men. We’re training them to be dedicated to beautification and also to have a job.”