The event will feature walking tours of the annual and perennial flower gardens. The gardens are an official All-American Selections bedding plant display garden.
NDSU’s Department of Plant Sciences will host a public event called “Plants, Local Foods and Outdoor Spaces” on Tuesday, July 30, from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the NDSU Horticulture Research and Demonstration Gardens.
The gardens are located on the NDSU campus at the corner of 18th Street and 12th Avenue North in Fargo. Free parking is available on the north side of the garden. Overflow parking will be diverted to the lot adjacent to the new Peltier Complex on 18th Street North.
The event will feature walking tours of the annual and perennial flower gardens. The gardens are an official All-American Selections bedding plant display garden.
Each spring, Barbara Laschkewitsch, garden manager, starts more than 200 species and cultivars of annual bedding plants in the greenhouse for transplanting in the garden. She then evaluates the plants for vigor, bloom and growth habit.
“This is NDSU research that directly benefits the gardening public,” says Esther McGinnis, NDSU Extension horticulturist. “The public can observe stellar flowering plants in the garden and then purchase them next year for their own landscapes. Conversely, we have plants that fail to thrive due to our winds, climate and alkaline soils. The public can learn which plants aren’t good choices for our region and avoid wasting money at the garden center.”
The star of the gardening event is the NDSU Historic Daylily garden which should be close to peak bloom. The daylily garden is the largest public collection of daylilies in the country with close to 2,000 cultivars. A special announcement will be made at the beginning of the event concerning the daylily collection.
In addition to garden tours, Julie Garden-Robinson, NDSU Extension food and nutrition specialist, and Joseph Zeleznik, NDSU Extension forester, will give talks under the big tent. Garden-Robinson will give a presentation titled, “Fresh Preserving and Serving Ideas for Your Summer Bounty.” Zeleznik will talk about the weather-related challenges that trees faced over the winter.
Children’s activities will include hunting for insects in the garden. Adults and children alike are also invited to take part in a daylily scavenger hunt. A tractor trailer tour of fruit and vegetable research plots will start at 6 p.m. Faculty researchers discussing their research will include Harlene Hatterman-Valenti, David Dai and Greta Gramig.
Extension Master Gardeners will be on site to accept donations of fresh garden produce and canned goods to benefit the Fargo Emergency Food Pantry.
“If you have excess cucumbers, beans and other fresh produce, consider bringing them to the event to fight food insecurity,” says McGinnis.
Extension Master Gardeners also will be on hand to answer plant questions.
Ice cream truck, Chatty Bell’s Treats, will be on site selling pre-packaged summery treats.
New this year, tours will be held of NDSU’s Peltier Complex at 2:15 p.m. and 3:45 p.m. The Peltier Complex is NDSU’s newest agricultural research and teaching facility to support food science, meat science, food safety, nutrition and consumer sensory research.
Tours are limited to a maximum of 25 individuals and registration is required.
