Demonstration Garden at HCC Is at Its Peak!

If you haven't strolled through the Reno County Extension Master Gardener Demonstration Garden on the Hutchinson Community College campus in the last month or so, you need to take a few minutes to stop by the gardens and marvel at the glorious color of all the flowers and shrubs!  The annuals are at their peak, and blooming brightly and the grasses are in full bloom and swaying in the breeze.

This is the perfect time to plan your annual flower and seed purchases for next spring.  The expansive annual bed is filled with KSU's Prairie Star annuals, as well as numerous KSU trial annuals. These are flowering plants that take the heat and the abusive rigors of our up and down Kansas weather. Take a pen and paper and jot down your favorites...the flowers and shrubs are all labeled so you can identify them. See more information about Prairie Star annuals at www.ksre.ksu.edu/bookstore/pubs/MF2769.pdf.

 This is also the best time to choose your favorite ornamental grasses for future planting, since the demo garden has over twenty varieties of mature ornamental grasses that are blooming. 

In the raised bed vegetable garden, Master Gardeners have planted tomatoes, eggplant, sweet potatoes, Swiss chard and 18 varieties of sweet and hot peppers.  The peppers are labeled with the range of Scoville heat units, the measure of the spiciness or hotness of peppers.

Following are some of my favorite annuals and perennials:

1. Profusion and Dreamland Zinnias (both are low spreading growers)

2. Full Moon Coreopsis (perennial)

3. Mesa Gaillardia (perennial)

4. Evolvulus "Blue My Mind" (nickel size royal blue flowers, low-growing spreader)

5. Brazilian Buttercup

6. Brazilian Button Flower (blue/lavender blooms and strawberry-like foliage)

7. Baby King Tut (Cyperus papurus - loves wet locations)

8. Kimberly Queen Fern (takes full sun and no burning!)

9. Vertigo ornamental grass (huge annual grass with burgundy-black leaves)

10. Coleus galore! Lots of varieties and colors growing in full sun.

The demonstration garden is located between the football stadium and the tennis courts, west of the pond and east of Lockman Hall.  After 4:00 p.m. and weekends you can park in the student parking lot south of 14th street.  The campus and gardens are a great place to bicycle too.  Master Gardeners tend the garden Wednesday mornings from 8:30 to 11:00 or so, depending on the heat.  We love to visit with visitors and answer your questions.  Come see us soon, and enjoy one of Hutchinson's best kept secrets. Submitted by sandyhillgardener.