Professor Lua Minns believed students learn best by doing. So the university's first professor of herbaceous plants established an expansive plot in front of Bailey Hall where she could help her students learn the finer points of gardening. Horticulture students still plan, plant, and tend the garden.

To the east, the 11-story Bradfield Hall rises above the greenhouses. To maintain climate control for the Department of Soil, Crop, and Atmospheric Sciences and the Department of Plant Breeding housed within, Bradfield lacks windows on the first 10 floors. Across the street, Corson-Mudd Hall houses the Department of Ecology and Systematics and the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior.