KAITLIN PEED SCHMIDT, MAPLE, AND REXY EMIERAN SCHMIDT

Fantastic NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN

Botanical Beasts
and How to Build Them

By Photographs by
Jaclyn Youhana Garver Devyn Glista
 At Applied Imagination
in Northern Kentucky,
the creative brains behind
Krohn Conservatory’s
popular holiday show, the
whimsy is a family affair.

KROHN CONSERVATORY

LAURA BUSSE DOLAN AND PAUL BUSSE

PAUL BUSSE’S VERY FIRST BOTANICAL MODEL

DIRK PETERSEN AT BILTMORE ESTATE

IN ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA

KIERAN BEAM
JUDY EGLIAN

53
 ANNIE GESSENDORF

LAURA BUSSE DOLAN (LEFT) AND STEPHANIE WINTERS

AVA ROBERTS

T
HE LITTLE HOUSE STANDS National Underground Railroad Freedom lina; the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washing-
less than two feet tall. In size, Center to add to the Krohn Conservatory’s ton, D.C.; and the Chicago Botanic Garden.
if not aesthetic, it’s com- holiday show. (The display of Cincinnati These details, though, don’t quite cap-

P H OTO G R A P H S C O U R T E SY ( P R E V I O U S S P R E A D ) A P P L I E D I M A G I N AT I O N , N E W YO R K B O TA N I C A L G A R D E N H O L I D AY T R A I N S H O W ® /
parable to Barbie’s dream house. Dried building miniatures opens on November ture the art of what’s created in the work-
moss grows organically around the edges 11.) Applied Imagination has also worked space in Alexandria, Kentucky. It’s one
of honey locust pod shingles. Sticks trim with the New York Botanical Garden since thing to see, for example, the 8-foot Ty-
a door made of bark, a tiny pinecone cen- 1992, and it has pieces in such locales as the rannosaurus Rex that greeted visitors at the
tered at the top like a jaunty flower. Just Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Caro- Krohn Conservatory this summer, a dino-

P H O T O G R A P H S B Y ( T. R E X A N D O W N E R P O R T R A I T ) J A S O N R I T T E R / ( T E X T U R E S ) B Y A D O B E S T O C K . C O M
to the door’s right, a small window holds
glass made of poured resin, with mullions
of winged euonymus—better known as FABRICATORS NATE POWELL AND CODY BURGARD IN THE WORKSHOP

burning bush.
There are no precise right angles, which
adds to the feeling that a gnome might poke
her head out at any time and invite us in for
a sip of tea. Or dew. Or whatever it is gnomes
drink. If it’s being served in this house, it’s
going to taste like fairy dust and honey.
This botanical model is the first thing
Paul Busse built, in 1991. It lives in his
daughter’s office, a reminder to Laura Busse
Dolan and everyone else who works at Ap-
plied Imagination of the company’s roots—
and seeds.
On its website, Applied Imagination
calls its creations “installations.” The
buildings and creatures made of botani-
cal materials are meant to pair with model
train displays. During an August visit, the
artists and staff worked on a model of the
 She’s 3 years old and belongs to Schmidt,
who’s had her since the dog was about three
months old. Maple has been going to the
workshop for nearly that whole time. She
and the other animals lurking around—in-
cluding a cat named Garfield—add to the
sense that Applied Imagination is a family
affair.

P
AUL BUSSE LAUNCHED THE
company in 1991, just a year
before he installed his first
pieces at both Krohn and New York Bo-
APPLIED IMAGINATION’S STUDIO IN ALEXANDRIA, KENTUCKY
tanical Garden conservatories. It’s been
31 years, and both of those shows are still
running today.
Busse, whom Dolan calls the company’s
“founding visionary,” studied architecture
at Miami University. When he realized he
didn’t want a desk job, he transferred to
Ohio State University to study landscape
architecture. He entered the field back in
the 1970s to design creative residential
living spaces; think of a gorgeous backyard
with a giant deck, a patterned brick patio,
and bright landscaping.
Applied Imagination mixes landscape
architecture with Busse’s lifelong obses-
sion with trains. “I can remember as a kid
we would go stand at real train tracks and
MUSIC HALL MODEL MADE POSSIBLE BY FRIENDS OF MUSIC HALL wait for a special train to come through
town that would rush by,” Dolan says.
saur that, unless you looked really closely, the long-neck dino you’ll see at Krohn, and “That was the most thrilling thing as a kid,
P H O T O G R A P H S B Y ( T. R E X D E T A I L A N D M U S I C H A L L ) J A S O N R I T T E R / ( T E X T U R E S ) B Y A D O B E S T O C K . C O M

appeared to be made of the same material there’s a picture of me underneath it [at the seeing real steam trains with my dad.”
as a dino at any museum space. workshop] making a foam snow angel. We He loved small trains, too. Applied
I m a g i n at i o n C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 6 1
P H OTO G R A P H C O U R T E SY ( T H I S S P R E A D ) – ( C H I L D H O O D P O R T R A I T ) A P P L I E D I M AG I N AT I O N /

It’s quite another thing to watch Kaitlin have fun.”

Peed Schmidt stand on an 18-inch tall hunk Applied Imagination is a company with
of Styrofoam and use a reciprocating saw to full-time employees and benefits—time
round out what will turn into a red spotted off, dental, all that—but there’s nothing
mushroom cap, with horse chestnut serv- “corporate” about this group. Getting to the
ing as the white dots. She’s working on one building requires a road so winding a tod-
of those 90-plus-degree August days. To dler might have drawn it. When you turn off
shape the mushroom-cap mound, she has the road, you cross a bridge, and the drive is
to duck out from under a portable tent set the first on the left. “More than likely, there
up to keep the most brutal of the sun’s rays will be model train tracks in the driveway,”
from baking her skin. Dolan warns, “so just park anywhere, even
The ground is littered with piles of foam if you have to park someone in. It’s a little
flakes. They dust the grass and work table, full out there.”
coating her forearms and the front of her Upon arrival, Maple greets you. She’s a
jean shorts. But this, apparently, is noth- mutt, though there’s almost certainly some
ing compared to the foamstorm kicked up lab in there, and you swear the dog smiles
during the making of the Krohn dinosaurs. when she sees you. She’ll allow a pat, but
“As you see, it gets very messy very fast,” this isn’t a dog that wants to cuddle. Maple
says Schmidt. “Those days, I would just be wanders the workshop, inside and out, like
covered in foam. It’s very static-y. There’s she runs the place. FATHER AND DAUGHTER PAUL AND LAURA

55
APPLIED IMAGINATION
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 55

uses G-scale trains, which are 1:24 scale

and were the first model trains to run
both indoors and outdoors.
Busse created his first public display
in 1982, for the Ohio State Fair. He didn’t
get paid for it. To save money and finish
everything in time, he slept on-site in a
sleeping bag, Dolan says. He borrowed
trains from a friend who owned a local
hobby store.
Today, Busse lives in a home about
150 feet from Applied Imagination. In
2016, he asked his daughter to take over
the company. Everyone knew his time
to step down was coming; Busse was
diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease
around 2006. Today, his Parkinson’s is
late stage. He struggles with talking and
walking, but his caretaker brings him to
the workshop, where Busse moved the
company in the early 2000s. Before then,
Applied Imagination was located in the
teeny basement of a carriage house in
Northside.
Busse’s vision outgrew the basement,
and it’s outgrown the workshop, too.
“We stay here so that he can come and
see what we do now and enjoy where this
company is headed,” says Dolan.
Today, her office alone is larger than
that original basement space. The full
1=;3
company includes four pole barns, each
30 to 50 feet wide and 50 to 75 feet long.
The leasable collection is stored in seven
B@/7<
storage units.
Dolan built models for Applied Imag-
ination while in high school and college,
E7B6CA
but she never intended for it to become
her full-time career. She was in advertis-
ing as a brand leader when Busse told her )/((7)((775$,1,1*352*5$06
he wanted her to take over. “I think you’re
the best fit for it,” Dolan remembers her
father telling her. “We can’t clone me, but
you’re the closest thing to it.”
4:33B433B17<1G1=;B@/7<7<5
While this path wasn’t her original
plan, she says, she knows it was the right

N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 3 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M 6 1
 APPLIED IMAGINATION

choice. “It wasn’t something that was the holes, hot gluing them in place. A
ever in the cards, but now, being involved tiny wedge light is in the center of the
since 2017, it’s absolutely the right path,” gourd, which lights up the fiber optic
she says. “I find so much joy in carrying ends and refracts the light through the
on this company.” other end of the wire, creating a glowing
That includes leading the team she’s orb of dandelion fluff.
assembled. In an early decision, Dolan “This is the stuff that really gets me,”
brought back Stephanie Winters as cre- says Gessendorf. “I’ve become kind of
ative director; she’d worked with Busse the lighting specialist here. I’ve gotten
in the ’90s as an artist. The pair’s tight to learn a lot over the years.”
friendship goes back decades. When That’s sort of how it works at Applied
they tell a story, they speak over the Imagination: When an artist gets excited
other, praise the other, and slip off on about a project, Dolan lets them dive in.
tangents. It’s how Schmidt, too, ended up as the
Dolan: “She helped me pick my first primary artist on the Krohn Conservato-
prom dress.” ry’s T. rex, which she named Rexy Emier-
Winters: “That’s how I met you. The an Schmidt (Rexy because, obviously;
prom dress, I was like, Let’s look at it.” Emieran is a nod to her coworkers, Emily
Dolan: “We bonded over fashion.” and Kieran; and Schmidt eponymously).
Winters: “I was in her wedding.” Rexy served as a sort of centerpiece to
Dolan: “Maid of honor.” the conservatory’s First Flowers exhibit,
Winters: “The cool thing is, we’ll which ran July 1 to October 22. Schmidt
come up with ideas. She’s been my muse also sculpted the forms of most of the
for some stuff, too. We like fashion and show’s other dinos and pollinators.
music. But she’s like, I need a wedding “You really gotta wrap your head
headpiece, and I’d never made one. It around how those animals’ anatomy
didn’t exist.” works,” says Schmidt. “One time I did the
Dolan: “I wanted a 1920s, what are gecko, and I just doused my brain with
those called? Coronets? all these different images of the gecko
Winters: “Coronet? Not bayonet.” to really understand their movement.
Dolan: “It’s like a crown. You can find I’ve always had a great love of sculpting
them on Etsy, but they’re all destroyed.” animals, so when the dinosaurs came
Winters: “Did we have Etsy back around, I was like, Let’s goooo! I would be
then?” the person who’d stay in college just to
Dolan: “We did. It was the beginnings keep learning new things, and this place
of it, but all of them were so aged, you definitely provides that for me. There
would have looked more like you were are enough different things going on and
dressing up for a haunted house. But new techniques to learn that it keeps me
luckily...” occupied for sure.”
Winters: “I’ll jump at any challenge.”
Dolan: “She hand-beaded this thing INSTEAD OF FILING CABINETS FULL OF
for me.” documents, the workshop draw-
In addition to 10 or so folks who serve ers stacked on open floor-to-ceiling
as contractors, traveling with the com- shelves are full of artists’ material. Chi-
pany to set up exhibits from Michigan nese wisteria seeds, lotus pod seed, hi-
to New York, Applied Imagination cur- biscus flower, and eastern red cedar are
rently employs about 15 full-time work- in small, clear drawers that might oth-
ers, including artists. erwise house nuts, bolts, and screws.
Tucked in a narrow space in the pole Dawn redwood cones, Casuarina pods,
barn that also houses Dolan’s office, An- and red canella berries are in short, wide
nie Gessendorf is bent over quietly mak- drawers that might otherwise hold ma-
ing dandelions from bamboo, ball gourds, nila file folders. Cut mahogany pods,
and fiber optic wires. She’s drilled small whole mahogany pods, and sweet gum
holes through the golf ball-sized gourd balls are in tall, deep drawers that could
and threads the fiber optic wires through otherwise store sweaters and socks in

6 2 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 3
your bedroom closet. Locust thorns in a
shoebox-sized clear container have stiff,
Dealing with
orange petals. They’re a cheerful pop of
color among the mostly tan, sepia, and Fungus Nails?
brown beans, seeds, pods, and shells.
Around the corner, bunches of tall, Dr. Cooper can help with a new laser
slim reeds and fronds are grouped in treatment, the Erchonia Lunula Laser.
industrial-sized buckets like the ware-
house section of a Michael’s. Twisty,
misshapen gourds hang from a fishing
net tacked near the ceiling over a door-
way. Boxes of Ming moss are tucked in How does the laser work?
open plywood shelves. The moss is one The Lunula Laser
ser targets the fungus and
nd
d
the newer materials for Applied Imagi- stimulates new clea
lear nail growth. Using
photochemistry, this is patented red and violet
nation, Dolan says. As the artists are
visionary laser stimulat
lates blood flow and
hired to make more dinosaurs, mammals, oxygen to promote health lthy nails.
and insects, they’re also needing more
materials to mimic skin and hair. Is it painful?
Despite the sheer amount of mate- No. You will only feel a slight cooling on
rial, not just any botanical will work. your toes during the procedure.
“We can’t use any edible parts of the
How effective is the laser
plants,” says Dolan. “We can use the top
procedure?
of an acorn, but we can’t use the actual Current studies show a benefit in 89% of
acorn itself because little critters live in patient’s nails. The laser treatment usually
conservatories and gardens and will eat takes a few months before you begin to see
them. That’s absolutely something we healthy nail growth.
learned the hard way.”
How long does it take?
Dolan recounts an early story of her
Just 24 minutes to treat 10 toes.
father’s: She doesn’t recall the specific
building, but it included a collection of What are the possible side
small lampposts made out of acorns. effects?
Busse came back the next day to see all No significant side effects
ff have been
the lampposts mysteriously—or perhaps reported.
not so mysteriously—gone. “Even with
the coatings that we use to kind of pre-
When can I resume normal
serve everything,” says Dolan, “the crit-
activity?
You may resume normal activity imme-
ters still found a snack.”
diately following treatment. There is no
These art supplies come from, well, downtime.
everywhere. On this late summer Friday,
the company had just gotten a shipment
of 100 gourds from a farmer in Georgia.
The botanical gardens they work with
help the artists harvest and collect ma-
terials. Applied will purchase from dry
natural plant suppliers and import things
they can’t get in the U.S. from a supplier
in the Netherlands, and employees are
known to collect botanicals themselves. BEFORE AFTER
“Just last week, we took an entire day
and foraged at a big property of a fam-
ily member of one of the artists here and
picked up cool things we can create with,”
Ruth Ann Cooper, D.P.M.
Dolan says. “A lot of times we’re just out
4415-B Aicholtz Road, Suite 200, Cincinnati, OH 45245
in the forest shopping.” (513) 943-0400 • ruthanncooperdpm.com
They can “shop” on their own

N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 3 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M 6 3
APPLIED IMAGINATION

grounds, too, and they’ve planted items rials down to be the exact, perfect every- but that’s where we lean more toward the
they harvest from often, she says. They get thing, but then it’s not interesting,” says botanical material side and away from ex-
a lot of their pinecones from a hemlock tree Dolan. “We might as well have made it out actness. But when you look at it, you still
out back, and the contorta bush has perfect of plastic.” see [the Freedom Center]. And then maybe
twisty branches. It’s why the material selection is so im- it makes some kind of harmony, the two
Applied Imagination is mindful of what portant, says Winters, the creative direc- things together.”
it harvests, trying to take material that tor. “You want to express little arches and Similarly, some of the changes the art-
won’t affect the forest: downed trees and keystones and all the details, but you also ists make in their designs serve to ensure
their bark, pods and pinecones that have want to be mindful of maintaining the nat- the finished piece looks more accurate
fallen off branches. But the one live plant ural materials,” she says. “Otherwise, it’ll than were they to follow a to-scale blue-
it cuts is lovingly called “ditch willow.” It just look like something that was manu- print. “Paul was also really big on focusing
grows in, yes, ditches, and helps prevent factured. That’s what we’re trying not to on the details that you remember most in
erosion. Cutting it encourages more root do. Because it’s a sculpture as well. It’s an your mind,” says Dolan. “If you look at our
systems to grow, which helps the local for- architectural model, but you want to sculpt model of the Capitol building in Washing-
ests and waterways. with the plant materials.” ton, D.C., you would absolutely say, This is
Take the catalpa branches on the Free- the Capitol building. It’s a beautiful model.
UNLIKE OTHER COMPANIES THAT MANU- dom Center project that Applied Imagina- But he truncated the wings on that thing,
facture displays, Applied Imagination isn’t tion is working on during my late summer probably more than half.”
trying to create exact to-scale models. visit. To create the building’s iconic swoop- If her father hadn’t made the change,
Consider that early Busse construction ing roof, Winters wove catalpa, a flowering says Dolan, the finished model would have
living in Dolan’s office, the one that looks tree, to create a thatched look. stretched 12 feet on either side. “So in-
like a home for gnomes. That’s the grown- “It doesn’t really look like that in real stead he brought the more iconic ends of
from-the-earth spirit that Applied artists life, right, because it’s metal siding ma- the building in closer to the center dome.
try to capture. “We can whittle these mate- terial,” says Winters. “It’s the same color, No one in the history of that display has

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6 4 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 3
complained, because that’s what people sider the first buildings it constructed knew that 8-foot-tall Rexy would need to
remember in their minds—they see the for Krohn’s holiday show—the botani- be chopped in half. “It’s hard to find a truck
dome, they see the wings.” cal architecture took up just half a room. that it would fit in,” he says. “And the weight
The wonder at the creations is real. “It was funny because it was so obvious: was a challenge as well.”
Spend 20 minutes at the Krohn’s First Flow- People were drawn to the Cincinnati land- McNertney schedules crews and leads
ers exhibit, and the soundtrack will be punc- marks that Applied Imagination did, like the onsite team in plotting out track and
tuated by gasps—usually children, often at a magnet,” says House. “Half the room was bridge locations in and around the build-
the T. rex. “Mom, look at the dinosaur,” a empty. The people weren’t looking at the ings. Setup occurs so often, it becomes a
small girl points, running up to Rexy.“Want plants or the flowers or the poinsettias. fairly standard step-by-step process, but
your picture with it?” Mom asks, and the girl They went to the holiday display that Ap- he still needs to improvise, whether it’s
poses with the 8-foot model. plied Imagination did.” because of weather, incorrect info from a
The next kid who runs at Rexy can’t talk So the show has expanded each year. It client, or a mistaken draft layout.
yet. He’s so small he doesn’t seem like he now takes up three of Krohn’s four rooms McNertney has a background in sculp-
should be able to walk, but he darts right and will eventually expand to all four. ture, and in his 12 years at the company he
to the model. His dad scoops him up and Jarrod McNertney, Applied Imagina- learned drafting directly under Busse. As
poses for a photo as well. tion’s lead engineer, heads the fabrication he discusses his favorite material to work
Rexy, clearly, is famous. And Krohn con- team responsible for constructing bridges with—willow, because it’s so easy to cut
firms his fame—and the fame of the full and large trestles to support the model and so fun to harvest—a flurry of white
exhibit. “It’s by far our most popular sum- trains. He’s also the foreman on on-site swirls outside of Dolan’s office window.
mer and fall show ever,” says Mark House, installations, which usually require six Thought No. 1: But it’s 90 degrees outside!
Krohn’s manager. “It set attendance records to 25 people. Thought No. 2: Wait... Styrofoam mush-
and revenue records.” He works out logistics: How will models rooms.
Just about everything Applied Imagi- get to the location? Or fit in the truck? How Schmidt, it would seem, is working the
nation makes for Krohn is a hit. Con- many vehicles are needed? Logistically, he saw again and causing a foamstorm.

N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 3 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M 6 5