Growing God’s creation

After spending 40 days and 40 nights floating in the ark, imagine how elated Noah must have felt to gaze upon green land.

That’s the same sense of awe Kim Smith tries to cultivate inside the greenhouses at the Ark Encounter, a historical theme park based in Williamstown, Kentucky, halfway between Lexington and Cincinnati.

Built to biblical dimensions, the 510-foot-long Ark is the largest timber-frame structure in the world. It features three floors of exhibits about the original ark, surrounded by other family-friendly attractions like a playground, zoo, petting zoo, zipline, restaurant and more. Most of the plant material that graces the grounds begins inside the greenhouses that Smith oversees as director of horticulture and greenhouse operations for Answers in Genesis (AiG), the nonprofit organization that operates the Ark Encounter.

“We try to beautify our gardens using plant material to add points of interest,” Smith says. For example, topiary animal duos and Rainbow Gardens, featuring hanging basket displays in every shade of the spectrum, create photo ops almost as popular as the Ark itself.

Smith started working for AiG’s other attraction, the Creation Museum, in 2006. She began working in the horticultural department there, growing and maintaining plant material for the botanical gardens. When AiG built a life-size Noah’s Ark 40 miles away in 2016, Smith transferred to the new location, where she’s been growing ever since.

Building an attraction

The Ark Encounter’s horticulture department started with a single Quonset hut and one greenhouse. Now, nearly seven years later, the operation has expanded into 10 facilities covering 22,000 square feet of growing space. It includes five small greenhouses, two Quonset huts, a tropical house and an agricultural fodder house. The Ark Encounter plans to add another three greenhouses within the next couple of years.

“At the Ark Encounter, we have a total of 800 acres, and at the Creation Museum, we have more than 70 acres, so we have plenty of room to expand,” Smith says.

Smith oversees the production of more than 50,000 plants every year to beautify the grounds of both attractions. Varieties include colorful summer annuals, fall pansies, trees, shrubs, grasses and tropical plants. Some tropicals, like elephant ears, are hardy enough to stay in the landscape all year long, while other varieties like palms must be overwintered in the greenhouse.

Most of the plant material arrives as plugs, while some varieties are planted as seeds and others are propagated from mother plants. Unlike wholesale greenhouse operations that aim to move inventory out, Smith and her growing team maintain and multiply their plant stock over time.

“Our goal is to put colorful, healthy plant material into the gardens so they look like they’ve been growing there for years,” she says.

Growing greens

Smith isn’t just growing plants to be beautiful. In some cases, the plants Smith grows are nutritious, too. The new agricultural “fodder” house uses soilless hydroponic and aquaponic growing systems to produce organic greens that supplement the diets of some animals in the zoo.

The vertical hydroponic system produces lettuce in about 40 days, at a rate of up to 100 heads per day. Another main crop in the ag house is barley. Six pounds of barley seed fit in one hydroponic tray, yielding 60 pounds of barley fodder within about a week.

The fodder house is designed to grow as efficiently as possible, leveraging geothermal heating systems to conserve energy. “The geothermal system helps us control the heating and cooling in the house, which assures healthier plant material,” Smith says.

Of course, the fodder house is entirely organic for the sake of animal health. “We can’t use any types of chemicals in that house at all,” Smith says.

Now, she’s exploring other alternatives to reduce chemical use across the operation. For example, she recently introduced beneficial insects to help control greenhouse pests. “We’re taking steps to do as much as we can through beneficials to see if this will be part of our growing program,” she says.

Expanding again

Once again, Smith is preparing to transfer back to AiG’s other attraction as the Creation Museum continues to expand.

“We just broke ground over at the museum for our conservatory and butterfly house, and we will have three growing facilities to support those exhibits,” Smith says. “I will be transferring back to the Creation Museum to set up the greenhouses and get all the plant material in and growing.”

Although there’s no opening date slated for these new facilities yet, Smith says the plans include a garden store/gift shop, where visitors will be able to purchase plants and other souvenirs to take home.

As she transitions into her new role, Smith is relying on her team of 13 employees at the Ark Encounter to continue growing without her.

“I could not do this without the help of my team,” she says. “It definitely takes a team to be able to accomplish everything we have to accomplish in just one day’s time.”