Visitors can walk past the cyan and purple colored Jade vines that drape the front of the evolution room, through the arid room that contains giant aloe vera dispersed among the cacti and take a seat beside a small waterfall under the shade of trees adorned with fruit and flowers in the tropic room. 

The plant biology department also holds a monthly tea hour in the conservatory on the third Friday of each month.

The conservatory’s sole faculty caretaker is Greenhouse Coordinator Lisa Murphy, but she isn’t the only person tending to the plethora of plants in the greenhouse’s possession. This semester Murphy has been working alongside 15 student volunteers who help water, repot, and trim plants.

For Emma Oazabal, a plant biology and environmental biology senior who’s volunteered at the conservatory for three years, the facility’s selection of plants has long been part of its appeal.

“I come from Mexico, so a lot of plants that are here I can see in my backyard,” Oazabal said. “So, I get homesick a lot here, but (there’s) also a very comforting community feeling.”

Plant biology junior and student volunteer Brooke Brown, meanwhile, noted how facility provides a piece of summer regardless of the season.

“I think people just don't really realize that you can have that year round if you come to see this,” Brown said.

Despite the intriguing foliage on display in the greenhouse and warmer temperatures relative to Michigan’s harsh winters, the number of annual visitors is a fairly modest 3,500 each year, according to green house coordinator Lisa Murphy.

That’s at least partly due to where the greenhouse is located on campus, Murphy said. The facility is tucked behind the larger Plant Science Greenhouses on the corner of Farm Lane and Wilson Road on the southern edge of the main campus.

“People aren't gonna find us on accident,” said Murphy, who also noted that the greenhouse doesn’t appear on Apple Maps. 

The facility was first constructed as a holding place for all of the plants housed in the old MSU Greenhouse, which was torn down in the late 1990s, and was meant to serve until the greenhouse’s permanent replacement is finished. However, the temporary facility has remained for 14 years and is set to remain for around 14 more, Murphy said. 

“Some of the plants out in the conservatory are still in pots,” Murphy said. “They're sitting halfway in the ground, because we anticipated picking them back up and moving them to a new conservatory in the near future.” 

Securing funding for the conservatory has been a consistent issue, Murphy said, adding that she has at times raised funds by selling plants through the MSU Surplus Store. This spring, she plans to start selling plants through the conservatory's website and auction off their prized Welwitschia mirabellis plants.

Eventually, the goal is construct a new conservatory, Murphy said, but “that won't happen if people don't use the space.”