Putting Down Roots
With Janet "Starr" Lemen, Golf Course Grounds Gardener
JANET "STARR" LEMEN, GOLF COURSE GROUNDS GARDENER
Landscapes, habitats, and horticulture merge together at The Broadmoor, creating a robust tapestry of stunning golf courses, decorative flowers, and an abundance of fresh vegetables grown at our very own Broadmoor Farms. Janet “Starr” Lemen gives us the dirt on her role, and how she helps shape the terrain.
Hi! What is your position here and what do you do at the resort?
I am a Gardener on the Golf Maintenance Team. We are responsible for anything from growing the annuals, to potting and planting them, to doing their maintenance. In addition to that, we’re also in charge of Broadmoor Farms. We focus on farm-to-table produce, and we work with the chefs on this. I’m just going into my third season, and this is one of my new responsibilities and areas of focus. Last year, I was just on what we call the “inside route” (we have different botanical routes for the different properties). In addition to the resort proper here, we are in charge of Seven Falls, Mountain Clubhouse, the Estate House, and also the Wilderness Properties.
Did you obtain any special training or certifications for this role, or did you primarily learn by doing?
I have been in gardening, retail wholesale, landscape sales/installation/maintenance pretty much since I was 18 years old. I’m originally from Missouri, and I earned my Nursery Certification in that state. Then to continue on to become a Horticulturist, I went back to school and got my Associates degree (which is a two-year degree, but it took me five years to complete it because I worked full time). I started with one class a semester, then moved to two classes a semester—otherwise it was going to take me ten years to get that degree! But I got it done in five years, and this is pretty much what I’ve been doing since I was a young adult.
Is there anything that inspired you or drew you to this field?
I like plants. The weird thing is that even though my area of focus this year is the farm, I’m a picky eater. I have the palette of a two year old, and I guess I don’t want to eat my friends...haha!
We recently interviewed Rachel (as well, to get a better understanding of how the whole resort is taken care of from a grounds perspective). She explained that there’s one greenhouse really dedicated to Broadmoor Farms, golf course florals and the auxiliary properties (as you mentioned), then another one to the resort. Do you all ever collaborate or work in tandem?
Oh, Rachel has been phenomenal. Our past supervisor left in late February/early March of this year, and without Rachel, we would have really struggled. She also gives us some space as well to grow our annuals; about three benches in her greenhouse. And actually, this year because we were so tight on space, she gave us a fourth bench, which saved us. Otherwise, we would have really struggled because things are very tight. Generally, we try to use our greenhouse as a growing facility for the vegetables, but we kind of broke it down this winter so we could do our annuals. We get plugs in and we’ll put them in 3” to 4 1/2” pots and grow them until they get big enough to transfer into our planters or baskets.
Are you going to be part of the team that works towards getting the grounds and golf course ready for the upcoming U.S. Senior Open?
Yes, we will be working during the Senior Open! We’ll be coming in at like 4:30am with the rest of the greenskeepers. We have our tee baskets around the 36 holes of the golf course here, but I think we’re going to be taking those down; I believe the Open may be doing their own thing. Actually, I’m not sure... so don’t quote me! But I think we’ll be taking those down and when the Open is over, they will go back up. Other than our usual stuff that we do, we have the planters at The Grille, by the lap pool, and in the tennis courts’ Champions Patio, but I don’t think any of that is going to be affected—all of that will be staying in place. Same with everything at the Fish House, and I’m pretty sure none of the “outside route” will be affected by the U.S. Senior Open either.
Are you looking forward to the tournament? Will this be your first big event of this kind?
Definitely! Since I’ve started, all I’ve heard about is the U.S. Senior Open 2025—it’s coming! So I’m very anxious to see it take place and experience it.
Do you have a favorite and least favorite part of your job?
Favorite would be working with the plants and my crew members, my colleagues. I’m not in a management position; my focus is the farm and I’m really excited to be doing that this year. I don’t have any particular expertise with growing vegetables, just my experience with retail lawn and garden type stuff and fiddling around in my own yard growing vegetables. But I’m very excited about the farm-to-table items, and we’re trying to incorporate some more permaculture crops into the farm...things like berries, asparagus, rhubarb, etc. We’re also trying to grow some different crops, such as potatoes in five-gallon pots. That’s something that our former boss wanted to do, and when she left, we thought, “Ok, let’s do that—it’s a great idea!”
We’re going to have the Chefs come up next week, and they’re going to see everything and work with us in the farm a little bit. They’re even going to be doing some weeding! But we have fun stuff for them to do, too; we have strawberries that need to be mulched with some pine needles and carrots that need to be thinned. I’m really hoping to get some good feedback from them about what kind of crops they want to see. I’ve been trying to do a couple of different varieties of microgreens, because I don’t really know enough about what they want for their dishes, as we have a spicy mix, a mild mix, and a umami mix. So really I’m just trying to figure it out; I’m excited to get their feedback and collaborate with them to ensure we grow what they want and need.
One of the things I get concerned about, though, is how to be able to cultivate enough produce that is feasible for use in our restaurants, because we have very limited growing space. We’re currently doing 28 beds that are 4 feet by 12 feet. Let’s take the collards for instance: the Chefs could start harvesting some of the collard leaves, but even if they harvest the maximum amount, by the time that lot actually cooks down, it will probably be just one serving. There’s a proper balance at play. Something that’s new for us, too, is that we are trying a cornfield. We’ve tried to do our corn in raised beds, but you only get about three rows of corn in a bed. Corn is a wind pollinated crop, and you kind of need a big crop to get good pollination—but we’re giving it a try this year!
When it comes to our off-site properties, do you have to go and spend a lot of time at them to tend to their flowers and gardens? Or do you bring planters and baskets to them and they maintain them?
As I mentioned before, we have an “inside” and “outside” route. The “inside route” consists of The Grille, the tennis courts, the lap pool, Fish House, all the tee baskets, and a couple little things we have at the shop, like hanging baskets. Then the “outside route” includes Seven Falls, the Mountain Clubhouse, Cheyenne Lodge, and the Estate House. We’ll usually have one person focus on a route, as they get to know their plants really well. They may see that they are drying down and need to be watered more, or notice if they are too wet and we need to back off on water. We’ll have a couple of crew members focused on that part of things. For the Wilderness Properties, we’ll go as a crew, and we may do weeding, clean up, dead heading (removing spent flowers)...stuff like that. A small crew may go up together roughly every two weeks or so to check on the properties and their plants.
Where do you spend the bulk of your day?
Right now, we are still trying to push out our annuals and get them ready and out of the greenhouse—we need to so that we can get that going as a farm again—so right now I’m spending a lot of time at the golf greenhouse/ farm. But once we get caught up on that, then I’ll be around the course more, doing things like beds cleanup, weeding, possibly going up to the Wilderness Properties as needed, etc. We have a new horticulturist, Briana Owens from California who started recently, and I’m excited to work for her! There are a lot of moving parts to our job, and having someone who can let us dive into our focused areas, and then make sure that all the other stuff gets done on top of it, is just great. We also have some seasonal staff joining us now as well...Kennice Robinson who came back to work with us this summer, and she’s excited because she’ll get to do the “inside route” this year. Previously, she filled in on the weekends, but now she’s ready to step in and own that route! We also will have Eddie Edwards, Rusty Austria, and Abbie Rose on our crew. It will be great to go into the busy season with everyone and experience a major golf Championship all together. From what I understand, we will get here early, do what we have to do, and then be down in the tent and the lower shop awaiting next tasks.
Is there anything else that you’d like to share with others about your job?
Well, the guests here love the deer, spotting herds, and seeing baby deer around property, but I’m not that big of a fan of our deer. There is a lot of deer pressure on our grounds. We do use deer spray/ repellent—I think I’ve used it so much that I can’t even smell it anymore! But many people can be very susceptible/sensitive to it, so we do have to be careful about applying it in the more populated areas on campus. We try to get in and spray early so it dries and is not too overpowering for guests.
We see your efforts in managing it with the small netting over the pansies outside, too! Those deer are hungry.
Yes, they will just go for it. The deer pressure is intense! If flowers are recently planted and not fully rooted in yet, the deer will just pull the whole plant out. It can be frustrating for us. It’s fun to see them, but they can be devastating to the grounds. Of course, guests love seeing them; we’ll often observe golfers getting ready to tee off on four East and see a whole herd of deer going by. They love checking them out. And it’s no surprise that we also have bears, and I’m afraid of bears. One of the crops I was considering introducing to our farm was Espalier apple trees; they are grown flat, almost like a grape vine. But I was warned that they could attract bears, so that was the end of that...haha.