Last fall, Laurence Ballard brought a seedling rootstock and a freshly cut tree branch — material needed to grow a new tree — into his shop on the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s East Campus.
Ballard walked his crew of student workers through how this material would be used for grafting an apple tree using the chip bud method. Ballard and the crews are now tending to the budded trees until they are ready to be planted alongside others Ballard had grown over the years.
This young tree, however, was one of a few on the university’s campus said to be descended from the apple tree that legend holds inspired Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity.
It was an experience that brought together all of Ballard’s favorite parts of his job.
Ballard, nursery supervisor for Landscape Services, cares for plants from seeds to flourishing on the grounds. In his job, he indulges in his passion for nature while also mentoring the next generation of horticulture professionals. Ballard hopes his careful tending to young plants helps them grow into the most beautiful adornments for the campus.
“As long as you did your job and gave them the best start in life you could possibly give them, that’s going to help them to make the transition to wherever they’re going next,” Ballard said.
Ballard’s journey to the plant world began in Australia, where he had moved after separating from the U.S. Navy. He needed to find a new line of work after leaving the military and started studying horticulture. To be closer to his aging parents, Ballard and his wife, Jo, moved their family to Lincoln, where his father was an English professor at UNL. He took a job as a temporary groundskeeper in 1997, and this grew into a permanent position. He’s been in his current position since 1998 and ultimately got his bachelor’s degree from the university.
Ballard’s work entails working with local nurseries to order plants and maintaining a greenhouse and two field nurseries of others not yet ready to go into the ground. He and his crews grow some from seeds or cuttings, and he works with a landscape architect to select and supply the right species for any given space. He checks the plants already dotting the campuses and makes sure they’re healthy, sometimes even digging them up and taking them back to his shop to nurse them back to health.
“I’m fascinated with propagation and learning all about how plants grow,” Ballard said. “It’s my life now. It’s a hobby and a job.”
Ballard’s home yard is also full of plants. Natives, pollinators, trees, shrubs — Ballard’s got them all. His wife also has grown into a plant lover, making arrangements and painting pots.
“Our yard is packed full of plants that have accumulated over the years,” he said. “I think every year I go somewhere to buy plants. I pick up plants when I’m traveling. There’s not much turf space left. When I’m done here, I’m often doing the same thing there.”
While Ballard doesn’t have a favorite species and grows all types of plants, he most loves a plant with a story like the Newton apple tree’s. One year, Ballard dug up a small sycamore that had started growing from a dropped seed in his herb garden. Later that summer, a group of students visiting the university as part of the Mandela Washington Fellowship program wanted to plant a tree in honor of Nelson Mandela’s birthday.
“I just happened to have this tree,” Ballard said. “I wanted it to be connected to Nelson Mandela in some way. It turned out there’s a tree called the Mandela tree, which is a London plane tree, which is a relative of the American sycamore, that he planted in England on a tour there.”
Now a row of these sycamores stands along the East Campus Loop, planted by successive years of Mandela Washington fellows.
He also fondly recalls spotting a pink flower across the street from his shop and observing it for a while. It made it through a winter and hot summer, and eventually Ballard identified it as a native wildflower. He was able to propagate it and plant the new flowers in difficult environments on campus.
The other most rewarding part of Ballard’s job is working with the student workers on his crew. Ballard loves sharing information with them and watching them learn about the plants as well as processes, techniques and equipment. He’s excited to give those new to the field some hands-on experience beyond what they learn in the classroom.
“It’s always fun to see them develop and then move on, and some of them have gone on and done great things in Nebraska in the horticulture area,” Ballard said. “They own their own businesses or they’re head designers at big firms. It’s neat to know they started off here.”
Ballard does also enjoy the nitty gritty of caring for the plants. There are challenges like keeping disease, pests and animals away from nurseries, but Ballard finds it gratifying to watch his work bloom.
“When you take a cutting, you don’t know if it’s going to work, so a real rewarding part is when you see the roots coming out of the bottom of a pot,” he said. “When I see a seed sprout, that’s amazing. It’s wonderful. But that’s just the beginning.”
