Joellen Dimond's green thumb is permanently stained. With the changing of the seasons for the past 19 years, The University of Memphis horticulturalist has had her hands in the dirt keeping the campus beautiful.
In two greenhouses on the South Campus, Dimond and her three-person staff grow and maintain more than 50 plant species that line the beds of U of M owned properties.
Dimond, who holds an ornamental horticulture degree from the University of Illinois, admittedly made a serious mistake early in her career with The University.
"There's one color you won't find on this campus," she said. "Orange. I used it one year when I was very young, but the powers that be suggested that I not use it again."
Trends and style are an integral part of what Dimond does each season.
"Each year it varies," she said. "Each year I've been here I've tried to introduce different things to The University campus."Dimond still derives satisfaction from driving around Memphis and looking for beds she planted 20 years ago around businesses and signs.
"When I first graduated from college I worked for landscape design companies here in town," she said. "People had just started using flowers for design purposes in the early 80s."
Dimond stands in greenhouse No. 2 by a group of purple flax plants.
"We can't grow everything from seed because there are so many varieties," she said. "These purple flax started with four plants."
More than 30 now grow under heat lamps in the humid, irrigated building.
Ornamental grasses, which Dimond said are a trend in landscape design, sit across from a species called chocolate plant.
"The scientific name is too long," Dimond said. "We started just using them in a couple of containers and I found some to get cuttings from a plant to grow more."
Spring is the busiest time of year for a horticulturalist and Dimond has just hired a new temporary employee for her staff.
April Davison, Kim McIntosh and Michael Kelly arrived back at the greenhouse after taking advantage of Thursday's weather to work outside.
"I love how our work brightens the campus up," Davison said. "This is something I grew up around."
Davison's parents and grandparents always kept immaculate gardens when she was a child.
"God made everything perfect," she said. "But he lets us help make things pretty."
Davison, who earned a degree in horticulture from Arkansas State University, gets a lot of satisfaction from her work at The U of M.
"It's rewarding to take a bare bed and put plants in it that you have grown from seeds," she said.
Special events and various University properties keep Dimond and her staff busy year round, as they plant and maintain more than an acre of beds.
"To be able to provide service for University events we need these greenhouses so that we can keep material on hand," Dimond said. "We're very fortunate to have the facilities to be able to do this."
Homecoming and the fall welcome for students pose challenges for landscapers and horticulturalists.
"Those are transition times for plants," Dimond said.
The U of M main campus, South Campus, the president's house and the School of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology downtown all have beds maintained by Dimond and her staff.
"The whole purpose of our job is to make things look good," she said.
