Wander.Lust – In and Around Central Iowa
By Tina Krug, Red Fern Landscape Design
Adel, Iowa
Mostly likely cornfields and livestock are what come to mind when you hear somebody talk about Iowa. It’s certainly what I thought of first when I got to know my farmboy husband! Twelve years later, I find myself living on an acreage about 20 minutes outside of Des Moines, Iowa, surrounded by chickens, sheep, and tractors ... but just down the road from a great city and some amazing gardens. As a landscape designer recently relocating my business to this area, I made it a priority to track down local landscapes to visit, photograph, and learn from. As a native North Carolinian coming to Iowa from New Hampshire, I also needed a crash-course in the right plants and design styles to fit projects in my new surroundings. My list of gardens to visit grew quickly and I love returning to these beautiful, inspiring sites. You’ll see many suggestions for delicious treats as you travel – I love to eat, and Des Moines doesn’t disappoint.
//Downtown//
The entire Des Moines metro area has over 550 miles of bike trails, making it incredibly easy to get around without a car. Start off your tour by renting a bike at the B-cycle station at 13th and Grand Ave. Head west just a bit to the Better Homes and Gardens Test Garden, where the garden editors of my favorite magazine showcase their design efforts. Staff are constantly changing out the 22 distinct garden areas to test plants, display a variety of design styles and features, and set up photos that you’ll see in future publications. With the feel of being in someone’s expansive backyard, you’ll find loads of ideas tucked into this little urban oasis. Pay attention to the gingko allée as you enter the garden from Locust Street, and make a note to return in the fall!
-Free; open only from 12-2 on Fridays May-Sept.
www.bhg.com/gardening/design/test-garden-secrets/visiting-the-test-garden/
The next block over, take your time going through the Pappajohn Sculpture Park, a 4-acre, open park spanning a large city block right in the middle of downtown. Twenty-eight different large sculptures will inspire your artistic creativity and get you thinking about garden art.
Eats: If it’s a Saturday, eat your way though the Des Moines Farmers’ Market along Court Avenue. If not, consider Fong’s Pizza, a unique Asian-influenced pizza and tiki bar. Try the General Tso’s Chicken pizza or the Fongolian Beef.
Cross the Des Moines River and ride along the riverwalk towards the beautiful Chinese pavilion which crowns the Robert D Ray Asian Gardens. Packed into this tiny riverfront space you’ll find many elements of classic Asian garden design – maybe not what you’d expect in this corn-fed Midwestern town.
-Free; open year-round.
Continue up the riverwalk to the Des Moines Botanical Garden, a treasure inside and out. The conservatory is a welcome respite during the long winter, but even in the growing season you’ll find a global perspective from tropical and desert plants. Outdoors, features like the rose garden, hillside garden, and water garden offer great ideas for designers in the Midwest and beyond.
$8/adults; open daily 10-5.
Eats: Consider stopping in at Zombie Burger if you haven’t hit any of the other food suggestions thus far- the long wait will be worth it for a wild selection of burgers fit for monsters.
Roll up the hill towards the golden dome of the Iowa Capitol Building. The building itself is lovely and tours are free from 9-4 Mon-Sat. Outside, you can take in the view and appreciate the grand way that local LA firm Confluence redesigned the Capitol’s west terrace. The pedestrian-oriented public space manages 33 feet of grade change over about 10 acres using multiple terraces. Intentionally designed transitions influence visitors’ experiences as they move through the mall. The grand connection between the Capitol and downtown houses many seating areas, grand legacy trees, native plantings, and contemplative spaces.
Back in the car, head west on Grand Avenue. One more sculpture awaits, along with a colorful oasis. Pull in to the Des Moines Art Center, located in Greenwood Park at 4700 Grand Avenue. If you have allowed time, head into the Art Center for some inspiration (free admission!) or walk around the building to the south side. Here, surrounded by mature oak trees, stands Andy Goldsworthy’s massive and intriguing sculpture “Three Cairns”. The installation in Des Moines is part of a trio of stone markers across the United States, with identical structures in New York City and La Jolla, California. Goldsworthy was fascinated by the Midwest’s connection to the country and its two coasts, and his dry-stacked, egg-shaped cairn surrounded by three massive walls carved from Iowa limestone is breathtaking. (Three-Cairns image)
-Free, open year-round.
www.dsmpublicartfoundation.org/public-artwork/three-cairns
After climbing inside one of the egg-shaped hollows (everyone wants to!) continue into the Clare and Miles Mills Rose Garden. This historic garden has been a favorite spot since the 1930’s, and it boasts more than 200 rose varieties in its role as an All American Rose Selection Public Display Gardens. With color from May into November, the traditional layout and wooded surroundings will inform your next elegant project.
-Free; open year-round.
www.dmgov.org/Departments/Parks/Pages/Greenwood.aspx
Eats: Stop for a sweet treat at Crème Cupcakes + Dessert before heading out of town.
//Day Trips (or, Just out of Town)//
Passing quintessential Iowa cornfields, our next stop is the Brenton Arboretum, just outside of Dallas Center, Iowa. This 140-acre arboretum will celebrate its twentieth year in 2017, and already offers more than 460 different species, hybrids, and cultivars of trees and shrubs, grouped for comparison. With two small ponds, broad expanses of native prairies and rolling hills as the backdrop for their extensive tree and shrub collections, the sweeping terrain epitomizes Iowa for me. I’m often inspired to incorporate a strong sense of place in my designs after spending some time out there. A few highlights:
-The crabapple collection, located on a gently sloping hillside and blazing pink and white in the spring, has over 90 trees on display. With a wide range of sizes, habits, and colors, the tree collection is a great laboratory for me to select the right plant for a client.
-The nationally recognized and ever-expanding Kentucky coffee tree collection houses wild-collected and propagated plants with a mission to promote this underused native Midwestern tree.
-The O’Brien Nature Play Area. If you work with families or municipalities designing play areas, this is a must-see. Children create, imagine, climb, and move as they play with natural structures on the site, like tree branches, hay bales, and tree stumps. (Brenton-Arboretum images)
-Free; open year-round 9am-sunset.
http://www.thebrentonarboretum.org
Eats: I couldn’t more highly recommend tucking in to the Cheeseburger with a “Skirt” from The Longest Yard, a typical small-town sports grill right on the main square in tiny little Dallas Center.
Continue through rural Iowa with a stop just north of Madrid, Iowa, a little town between Ames and Des Moines. The Iowa Arboretum is a great place to stretch your legs and enjoy woodland and prairie trails. Check out their collection of hostas bred or named by Iowans and come in May and June to see the peony labyrinth. With a long history (for Iowa) dating back 150 years, the Arboretum serves as an outdoor laboratory to showcase plants best adapted to the soils and climate found in Iowa, and to learn the hardiness and adaptability of newly introduced plants.
$5 per car, open year-round sunrise to sunset.
Liatris in front of the conifer collection at the Iowa Arboretum
Image credit: Iowa Arboretum FB page, posted July 24, 2014
Waking from the nap you might need following that cheeseburger, head north to Ames, Iowa, home of Iowa State University and Reiman Gardens. The 17-acre teaching and display gardens feature a wide range of styles. The Town and Country Garden provides ideas for use in home and business landscapes, from an outdoor living room to a home production garden. An enchanting bald cypress allée leads to a formal rose and herb garden, complete with fountains and boxwoods. Be sure to explore all the way to the giant sycamores in the wooded area near the Hillside Garden, and don’t miss the world’s largest concrete gnome! Before leaving Ames, explore a little of ISU’s gorgeous central campus, which was designed by the Olmstead brothers in 1906. (Reiman-Gardens images)
-$8/adults, open daily 9-4:30, until 6pm during summer. Free on the 2nd Wed. of each month.
Eats: Bar La Tosca downtown has Italian small plates and excellent cocktails.
West of Des Moines about 45 minutes, you’ll find the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge, a gem of a destination near Prairie City. Spanning 5600 acres, the refuge’s impressive mission is to restore three distinct ecosystems that were present in Iowa before settlement: tallgrass prairie, oak savanna, and sedge meadow. To that end, there are huge swaths of prairie to walk through, a 700-acre buffalo and elk enclosure, and miles of trails for birding, biking and hiking. The visitor center will school you on how farming and development have affected Iowa’s native ecosystems. Like some of our other destinations, any designer will leave with a plant palette that speaks to a Midwestern landscape.
Free; open year-round.
