Planning, planting and maintenance keep MUBG’s operations manager satisfyingly busy

Horticulture is a part of Blair Crosby’s heritage. Operations manager for Landscape Services and Mizzou Botanic Garden, Crosby said his father always worked horticulture jobs. Growing up, his parents owned a small greenhouse in his hometown of Liberty, Mo.

 

“Working outside is what I grew up doing,” he said. “I always stuck with my dad, digging trees, mowing and trimming. When I went away to school, my father and my brother started a small landscape business in Kansas City.”

 

Crosby earned a degree in Ag Business from the University of Arkansas. After graduating, he lived in Sacramento, Calif., selling fertilizer until he landed a job back in Missouri in 2009 with a landscape company. Two years later, he took a job with MU Landscape Services as a gardener.

 

“In June, I will have been here 10 years,” he said. “I’ve worked as the supervisor for the last four years.

 

“My key function is to supervise the construction crew. We install landscapes, do tree plantings and removals. Last year we planted 200 trees on campus,” Crosby said. “Joan Smith [landscape designer for Campus Facilities] does the designs.”

 

Crosby said such installations are a highlight of his work.

 

“Planting the 175 trees for the 175th anniversary [in 2014] was one of my favorite projects at the university.”

 

When building renovation or construction occurs on campus, Crosby’s crew is in charge of the new landscaping, as is the case with the recent completion of the Sinquefield Music Center and State Historical Society building. Those large installations are only a small part of Crosby’s responsibilities.

 

“There is a grant we are working on through the Missouri Department of Conservation for native tree restoration,” he said of the current MDC Tree Resource Improvement and Maintenance (TRIM) grant that has resulted in the removal of ash trees affected by the Emerald Ash Borer infestation and the removal of invasive Callery (Bradford) pears.

 

“We planted native Kentucky coffee trees where ash trees were removed near Middlebush Hall, and American hornbeam trees in place of pears by Tate Hall, right off of Conley,” Crosby said of the native species planted.

 

As operations manager, he also is in charge of the mowing on on the 1,055-acre campus – fully 240 acres of which is mowed almost weekly.

 

Once the mowers are put away for the season, Crosby said, his team tackles leaf removal and then helps the horticulture crew in the winter months with mulching, tilling and applying compost. And when it snows, it’s all Landscape Services hands-on-deck as the staff turns their attention to moving the white stuff around. Crosby’s crew continues to plant trees as long as the ground isn’t frozen.

 

Crosby recently was awarded an MDC Community Conservation Grant entitled MU Habitat and Pollinator Restoration. The objective of the $12,700 grant is to replace 4.2 acres of fescue turf with native Missouri prairie and wildflower plantings. Benefits would include the reduction of weekly mowing activities, thereby reducing landscaping expenditures, while at the same time creating pollinator, bird and wildlife habitat. The plantings also will serve as campus teaching and research resources for students, faculty and landscape staff on topics of invasive species control, native Missouri plant identification, prairie management and urban habitat restoration.

 

Targeted areas include three acres on East Campus by the mule barn and Animal Science Research Center and one acre near the Mizzou athletics training complex.

 

Crosby is delighted his grant was approved and is eager to get going on the project.

 

“What I like best about my job is being able to work outside and the variety of things I do, from planting trees to keeping the everyday items that we use in landscape services running — hedge trimmers to vehicles — there is always something.

 

“I get to help keep this campus beautiful on a daily basis.”