Admin“I had no idea these gardens were here!” is a comment some of our members have heard repeatedly in the past year, so I felt it was time to introduce our gardens. Let’s take a quick tour of the property.
Our Demonstration Garden consists of a series of beds used to illustrate various types of gardens. In the past 15 to 20 years, Master Gardeners have designed, built and tended these gardens located at the OSU Extension Office at 316 E. Oxford.
Visitors are welcomed to our grounds by a beautiful cut steel sign emblazoned with Garfield County Master Gardeners Demonstration Garden. This precedes a wooden bridge leading to an entry bed filled with salvia, daylilies, pansies and a redbud tree.
The left concrete path leads to the large gazebo surrounded by evergreen arborvitaes and maroon barberry bushes. The wooden gazebo has benches lining the inside rails. This structure has been host to picnics and meetings, as an after-celebration place to visit with friends, and used as a place to sit and rest one’s body and soul.
Crushed gravel paths lead to several points of interest, the first being Keyhole Garden. It is comprised of two raised beds containing chives, swiss chard, peppers, onions and tomato plants. These beds act as an entrance to our greenhouse, which is used to grow plants and host education classes.
The gravel path east leads past the Xeriscape Garden, which showcases plants that require very little water to thrive. It includes select grasses, sedums and creeping phlox, with some dwarf sunflowers thrown in.
The Prairie Pocket Garden is found at the end of the east gravel path and is designated as a Monarch Butterfly Way Station. This garden contains many varieties of flowers that provide food for migrating monarch butterflies. This is the only bed within the Demonstration Garden that is neither structured nor manicured in order to mimic our prairies.
The west gravel path leads to one of two small bridges that span the dry riverbed and lead our Children’s Garden, which is made up of a series of five areas that were designed to be child-centered and facilitate learning through imagination and fun. The Butterfly Garden contains flowers that provide food for butterflies and other pollinators. The Sensory Garden is comprised of raised beds with plants to engage the use of the senses of touch, sight and smell. The Heart Garden is brimming with bright red geraniums. The Labyrinth Garden is a maze for children as well as a place for adults to walk and meditate. The Fairy Garden and its village can be found hidden at the base of the weeping mulberry tree.
I encourage you to explore our gardens with your family and friends. If you are interested in using the gazebo for any function, it is free to the public. We just request that you call the OSU Extension Office at (580) 237-1228 to reserve it so it can be placed on our calendar.
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Bowers is a member of Garfield County Master Gardeners.
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