A few weeks ago, I shared that during my trip to Wisconsin to speak to the Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society I was fortunate enough to have Jeff Epping tour me around for the day.
Of all the places he promised to take me, I was most excited to see the Epic campus where he has been instrumental in developing their plantings. To be honest, the 1,670 acre campus has to be seen to be believed. And, as you’ll see from the photos below, much of it is fantastical. I asked Jeff why all this effort to make Epic HQ look amazing. He said that the founder Judy Faulkner knew she would be competing for talent with big coastal cities, and she wanted to make Epic an epic place to work.
While much of what you’ll see from these photos is really out of this world, there are still ideas and inspiration to be gleaned. And, the biggest inspiration I took away from seeing the plants and building designs was that we can think differently.
I should note for clarity the buildings have unusual names. I’ve capitalized them to help distinguish their identities, so if you see a random word like Creatures, Library, or Guilds, just know that’s the building’s name.
The first campus we visited was designed with a farm theme. That’s not a barn, but it is a building where employees work. Jeff said that this orchard was around six years old.
Jeff said that most buildings have a signature staircase. In this first one, a Farmall tractor had been disassembled and mounted to the wall.
A map provides a sense of scale of the campus.
The next campus we visited was the Prairie Campus that featured a variety of herbaceous and woody plantings. Jeff told me that every building on campus is connected via skywalks or in the ground tunnels. In Wisconsin during the winter they make sense.
On the Prairie Campus, a number of Lespedeza (bush clover) were in full bloom. He said that they didn’t see any seed on them like further south.
In the Indiana Jones tunnel, if you pulled on the figurine, a rolling boulder would sound like it was coming toward you.
I noticed a Monarch on a Heptacodium miconioides (seven son flower) and noted to Jeff how I was surprised. He then told me what a pollinator magnet this small tree is, and he said that the tree is often covered with pollinators.
I loved how there were parts on campus where they let the landscape grow a little wild. Here Solidago (goldenrod) and Symphyotrichum (aster) provide a lovely color pairing for autumn.
Jeff said this area was inspired by the beautiful amphitheater at The Scott Arboretum.
Jeff then took me to see the large gravel garden at Epic. The majority of their parking is underground, and with the seamless landscape you would never know there were hundreds of cars below you. In these areas no trees grew since their weight would be so heavy. Instead of just having an area to mow, they got creative with their plantings.
The biggest benefit with the gravel garden is less maintenance. You can see some of the plant diversity in the gravel garden including Parthenium integrifolium (wild quinine) and Echinacea paradoxa (yellow coneflower).
In another section of the gravel garden Salvia yangii (Russian sage, aka Perovskia atriplicifolia) and Baptisia australis (wild indigo) grew as round-mounds amongst the upright grasses. I commented to Jeff how our Baptisia were already dormant and theirs were still green.
To help separate the gravel garden from grass, they had pavers in place.
Closer to the western area, an Asclepias syriaca (common milkweed) was covered in heavy seed capsules.
Schizachyrium scoparium (little bluestem) catch the light in the western-themed area. Jeff told me that most of these grasses had seeded in, and they left them.
More mature Heptacodium miconioides are in bloom much later in Wisconsin than they do for me in Texas.
Outside Kouhoutek was a more Asian themed planting. Many places and roads were named after celestial objects since Judy has a fascination with space.
We then walked toward Wizard’s Academy that was themed after Harry Potter. It looks like a back alleyway in England!
A beautiful allée in Wizard’s Academy is flanked by colorful containers.
I really admired their color choices in the containers. They are large enough that even the Cotinus (smokebush) has space to grow.
It was at this point that Jeff shared that as they were building campuses, they kept trying to make them from scratch. The suggestion was made to make them modular. Use the same footprint for the buildings so that you automatically know how much supplies you need. And, they can then design them however they want to on the inside or the out.
Fortress was designed to look like some medieval castle.
Guilds was one of the new buildings just constructed. It’s amazing to see the detail on the outside of the building.
The plantings outside Guilds featured a new gravel garden. These have to be watered frequently until the plants establish.
Looking outside you can see the new plantings around Creatures (building to the right). You can see the break between where perennials stop and woody plants start with the break in mulch color and planting density.
The signature staircase in Creatures had to be seen to be believed! A giant dragon was suspended in the stairwell.
Watch out Jeff!
Look at this lovely stained glass window. Except it isn’t! It’s a cloth over a glowing light pillar.
As we headed back toward Wizard’s Academy, Jeff took me into Library to see their signature staircase. It resembled a beautiful library.
At the bottom of the staircase in Library was this beautiful cutouts of letters.
We stopped for lunch in King’s Cross cafeteria. They had such good and fresh food available for their employees.
