PHOTOS: UC greenhouse offers colorful respite from winter

Atop the roof of Rieveschl Hall sits the UC Greenhouse, six high-tech polycarbonate houses that grow plants for biology in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Greenhouse Manager Audrey Trauth is here most days tending the plant collection, which is organized into biomes to accommodate the desert, temperate and tropical plants.

Some of the plants were collected from around the world for UC research. Others are used in a variety of classes from plant physiology to medical botany. And some favorites are cultivated for the greenhouse’s popular twice-annual plants sale.

But more than that, Trauth said the greenhouse is open to all students, even if they merely want to spend some time around something green during an Ohio winter.

“We’re trying to make the greenhouse a resource for the entire university and the greater community,” she said.

Trauth is a UC alumna. She studied biology and fell in love with plants after working internships at a flower farm in Columbus, Ohio.

“I took care of their hothouses and greenhouses. They had tropical plants and succulents. That’s how I got my start,” she said.

She came back to UC in 2022 to manage the greenhouse. She knows the plants well because she grew many of them.

In one corner, a trellis creates a “living wall” of the tropical greenhouse.

“Generally it’s plants that would grow in the understory to midstory of the canopy of a rainforest,” she said.

The space is dominated by a pretty flowering vine that reaches nearly to the ceiling vents.

“This is one of my favorite plants, bougainvillea,” she said. “It produces thorny tropical vines. It starts in this pot here, and it grows all the way to the top of the greenhouse. It’s native to Southeast Asia. I visited the Philippines after I graduated from UC and they were just everywhere.”

Another UC greenhouse features cacti and other desert plants.

“This is Mother of Millions, a fast-growing succulent,” she said. “They call it that because at the slightest touch, little plantlets fall off, get windblown and colonize other places. So if you look around the greenhouse, you can see little Mother of Millions plants.”

Besides the greenhouse, UC’s Department of Biological Sciences has a variety of other resources for students, including the Margaret H. Fulford Herbarium, which contains a collection of more than 125,000 plants. UC maintains the Harris M. Benedict Nature Preserve in Montgomery, Ohio. And students take classes and conduct research at UC’s sprawling Center for Field Studies next to Miami Whitewater Forest in Harrison, Ohio.

The greenhouse, too, facilitates UC’s biology research. UC Professor Eric Tepe and his students are studying a species of silver nightshade native to the desert Southwest that has spread across much of the globe. The nightshade is toxic to livestock and interferes with crops.

Tepe is studying why this variety has become so invasive when very similar species have not.

“The question is why?” he said. “We’ll subject the plants to drought stress and see how they respond, what genes are expressed under ideal conditions and stress conditions to see if they have something their relatives don’t have that allows them to thrive in arid conditions.”

The greenhouse makes that research possible, he said.

“It’s a fantastic resource,” Tepe said.

Students from UC’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning have visited for drawing classes. And the greenhouse has nooks and benches where students can read a book or catch up on email surrounded by flowers and exotic flora.

Just beware of the misters.

“I should probably put up a warning sign,” she joked as the automated sprinkler system kicked on to water an orchid arbor over an ornate bench.

Technology is a big feature of this space. The greenhouse has automated temperature and humidity controls that open the roof vents, draw the sun shades or start fans that circulate outside air.

While many of the installations have automated sprinklers, Trauth and her student volunteers still spend a lot of time watering.

“The sophistication of the system to regulate the temperature and humidity is pretty impressive,” she said.

Each April around Earth Day and October before Halloween, the greenhouse holds a plant sale.

“We sell mostly tropicals and desert plants. Lots of vining and flowering plants, cacti and succulents,” she said. “And sometimes we’ll have herb and vegetable starts. It gets a great turnout. It’s a great way for people to learn about the greenhouse.”

Follow the UC Greenhouse on Instagram for updates as the 2026 Plant Adoption dates are set.

Featured image at top: Audrey Trauth manages UC's greenhouse, which provides a resource for researchers, biology students and winter refugees alike. Photo/Connor Boyle/UC Marketing + Brand