Excerpted from a Substack Post by Christie Vilsack
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There’s a ghost in the Des Moines Botanical Garden, all year round, not just at Halloween.

Once a week as volunteer Garden Host and Master Gardener, I greet guests and show them around. Many want to see and smell the corpse plant. It attracts lots of visitors when it blooms and stinks up the place every four to five years, but it’s not in bloom now. I lead others to the foodscape with bananas, coffee, cinnamon and cocoa trees. I always ask where guests are from, because inside is mostly tropical plants but outside showcases our Midwestern treasures.

Kintzley’s Ghost is 12 feet high

The Botanical Garden’s ghost is now over 12 feet high. In fact, there are two ghost honeysuckles tucked into a corner of the outdoor garden near the waterfall. I enjoy their yellow flowers in summer and the blue saucer-like leaves that form around red berries in fall. The birds and pollinators love them, too. But I’m a storyteller, so for me the appeal is also the story of William Kintzley, propagator of this unique plant in the late 1880’s when he worked in the greenhouses at Iowa State University.

I first heard the story two years ago from Aaron Harpold, Director of Horticulture, at the Botanical Garden. When I was volunteering at the spring plant sale, he showed me the honeysuckle, and told me the story. I took one home even though I live in a forest with little sunlight.

Kintzley propagated the plant in the ISU University greenhouse, but it was never released commercially. However, he gave cuttings of the vine to family members, They gave cuttings to their family members. Over time, the plant was forgotten.

The ISU-CSU Connection

Aaron continues the story: “A horticulturalist driving around Fort Collins, Colorado, (home to Colorado State University) saw this thing that looked like a eucalyptus. It was growing in someone’s backyard. He hit the brakes and knocked on the door.” The older man who answered explained his grandfather was William Kintzley. As the propagator, he had passed cuttings of the plant to family members. “It’s a great generational story about sharing plants both personally and professionally,” says Aaron. “I love how plants, just like us, have a past, present and future.”

Kintzley’s Ghost was first offered for sale in 2006 by Plant Select, a collaboration between Colorado State University, Denver Botanic Gardens and Professional Horticulturists. Now you can order them from many outlets or look for one next year at our plant sale in May.

I’ve read that it will grow in almost any soil if it’s moist, and it can tolerate temperatures as low as 30 degrees below zero. It’s a vine, so it needs a trellis, fence or wall for support. The one sunny spot near our home is the mailbox, so our ghost is planted there for sunshine and support.

I’m taking the ghost I bought this year at the plant sale as a gift to Tony Frank, Chancellor of Colorado State University to celebrate our Colorado-Iowa connection. He graduated from Wartburg College in Waverly (his mother’s alma mater) before he attended the University of Illinois for his degree in Veterinary Science. We worked with Tony and his team from 2016-2020 to bring the new CSU Spur campus to life at the National Western Center in Denver. Tom is now an adjunct professor at Colorado State where he’s developed a class focused on helping small and mid-sized farmers find new funding streams to help revive the rural economy.

See you at the Garden!