Flowers to add color at new exit

SIKESTON, Mo. — Flowers will brighten Interstate 55's new exit 102 starting next year. The floral accent culminates Dave Niswonger's dream to use a flower he cultivated specifically for Missouri highways.

On Saturday, he and nearly 30 volunteers will transfer 3,000 daylily bulbs from his Gordonville farm to the freeway.

The yellow daylily, named "Missouri Highways" is considered resilient as well as unusual. Niswonger, 82, started with just five plants in 1985.

The former Southeast Missouri Hospital administrator had a dual career as a hybridizer — someone who creates new varieties of flowers. Though Niswonger specializes in irises and has introduced more than 250 new varieties, he's also developed dahlias, gladiolus and plants that bear berries or nuts. The Men's Garden Clubs of America awarded him a gold medal for horticultural achievement and the British Iris Society honored him with the Sir Michael Foster Medal, just a few of many awards he's earned since the 1950s.

Niswonger got the idea of donating the flowers during a 1988 visit to Jefferson City, while touring Missouri Department of Transportation offices. There, he met a landscape designer who showed him images of highway beautification projects, including a daylily-lined throughway.

Niswonger immediately thought of the five seedlings he'd brought home from a conference in 1985. The blooms open "as a bright gold that shows up in the distance," he said. He began to grow the flowers, hoping to someday have enough to offer to MoDOT.

When he heard about plans to link Jackson's East Main Street and Cape Girardeaus LaSalle Avenue to I-55, Niswonger contacted the university.

He'd grown close to 1,000 flowers and promised to deliver about 3,000.

He also told a new friend, Dick Withers, about his idea.

Like a pollinating bee, Withers went from spot to spot, spreading the word of Niswonger's dream, during dinner parties and other gatherings, specifically Missouri Department of Transportation officials. They in turn cultivated the idea through the state's Adopt-a-Highway beautification program, which now includes a landscaping program, "Growing Together."

Niswonger's donation is worth $24,000; Missouri Highways daylilies sell for $8 each.

The rows of daylilies will be planted to allow for a circular center, where late-blooming plants, such as crepe myrtle or Russian sage, will extend the roadside color. Niswonger said donations will be welcome.

Saturday's project is the biggest Niswonger has ever managed. He'll work with at least 10 Southeast students to lift the bulbs from his land; 20 more students will help transfer them to the roadside garden bed.

"It's kind of a neat project to beautify the area," said Andy Meyer, MoDOT project manager.

He said Niswonger's flowers will fill in a flat grassy area on the northbound side of the freeway, between the on and off ramps, near Southeast Missouri State University's new Technology Village.

MoDOT will provide safety vests to volunteers and mulch — made from ice storm debris — while Southeast Missouri State University has agreed to oversee long-term care for the flowers. Meyer said he wants drivers to be aware of the work being done as they travel through the area and keep safety in mind.

When the work is done, MoDOT will install a "Growing Together" sign at the daylily site.

Withers calls Niswonger "a folk hero."

"I'm absolutely enthralled by a man who wanted to do what Ladybird Johnson did — beautify America," he said.

To learn more about MoDOT's "Growing Together" project, call MoDOT at 888-275-6636; for more on this weekend's exit 102 planting, call Niswonger at 334-3383.

pmcnichol@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 127