Gardens
Entrance Garden
The sign for the Master Gardener Display Gardens welcomes visitors and leads them from the hustle and bustle of the outside world into the beauty of our gardens. The Entrance Garden features a raised earthen berm planted with trees, shrubs, and ornamental grasses. Boulders were added for weight and interest.
The garden has winter appeal thanks to the sound of wind through the grasses, and berries on the shrubs. Early blooming bulbs bring the garden to life in the spring, and with summer blooms and colorful fall foliage this garden is attractive all year. (Garden sponsored by Fifth Third Bank.)
Outlook Garden
Just past the Entrance Garden visitors will see an impressive mound rising before them. This is the Outlook Garden. A walk up the ramp will allow the entire Display Gardens to be surveyed from an elevated perspective.
The plantings and
ground covers on the sides of the Outlook were planned for color, ease of
maintenance, and erosion control. Visitors can enjoy the Aeolian Wind harp at
the top of the ramp and the container plantings around the plaza at the top of
the mound.
Cabin Gardens
The cabin gardens give a
glimpse into the life of early settlers. Visitors will see many examples of the
plants those pioneers grew for food and medicinal purposes, including heirloom
corn and vegetable varieties. While most early settlers did not have the luxury
of having a flower garden, we have incorporated popular heirloom type flowers
to reflect the period. The end
result is a kitchen garden, herb circle, and flowerbeds typical for a cabin of
that era.
Berry Patch
The Berry Patch showcases many fruits and berries commonly grown in the Tri-State area. Blueberries, raspberries, and thornless blackberries are planted as well as June bearing and everbearing strawberries. A serviceberry tree and espaliered apples round out the selection of fruit.
Surrounded by a split rail fence reminiscent of pioneer days, the garden serves to demonstrate the proper planting and maintenance of a home-sized fruit garden. (Garden sponsored by Berry Plastics.)
Shade Garden
No collection of gardens would be complete without a garden featuring woodland and shade-loving plants. The Shade Garden is devoted to highlighting different levels of shade and the plants that prefer them. A winding path leads through ancient yews, while benches provide a place to stop and relax for a bit while exploring the gardens.
The garden includes many azaleas, plus a large number of hostas and ferns. Perennials like Woodland phlox, lily of the valley, and columbines are scattered about the whole area. Shade-tolerant annuals are used to provide seasonal color.
Rain Garden
We have found that drainage can be a problem across our Master Gardener Display Gardens site, a problem that is encountered in many flat neighborhoods. Rain Gardens serve to help address drainage issues around homes by accepting run-off from roofs and driveways and helping it percolate down into the soil.
Rain gardens are dug
and turned deeply and then planted with plants that root deeply, especially
native perennials. Water is much more readily absorbed in these gardens then it
is in lawn areas. Visitors can see a working rain garden firsthand and decide
how one might work on their own site. (Garden
sponsored by Vanderburgh County Soil and Water Conservation District.)
Iris Walk
This area shows off the many different colors and forms of irises. Master
Gardeners have created a display of rainbow colors meant to lead the visitors
through the color spectrum. Many different varieties of bearded and beardless
iris, Dutch iris, Siberians, dwarfs, and reblooming iris are represented in
this area. (Garden sponsored by the
Fehrenbacher family.)
All-America Selections (AAS) Garden
The All-America
Selections organization tests new garden seed varieties all over North America
and selects the ones with superior garden performance. The best are named annually as AAS
winners. SWIMGA is proud to have one of the three Indiana AAS Display gardens.
Vegetable Gardens
The Production Veggie Garden is our largest garden. All the produce grown there goes to the Tri-State Food Bank for distribution to soup kitchens and food pantries in Vanderburgh and Warrick counties.
We select vegetables based on their suitability and yield in our climate, their popularity with Food Bank clients, and post-harvest keeping qualities. Trials of different vegetable cultivars are conducted to determine those most desirable to grow. In 2009 we planted broccoli, cabbage, beets, onions, green beans, cucumbers, squash, cantaloupe, watermelon, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, turnips, and sweet potatoes. Succession plantings are used to maximize the yield and extend the harvest.
Over 8000
pounds of fresh veggies were delivered to the Food Bank in 2009. (Garden sponsored by Jason White MD.)
The Vegetable Demo Garden serves to show
homeowners how to grow vegetables in a small space or in an area with poor soil
or bad drainage. The vegetables are intensively planted in a raised bed system
filled with soil that has been amended with compost and aged manure.
Cottage Garden
This garden
represents a style of gardening that was popularized in Britain in the 1930s by
gardener and author Margery Fish. Her love of flowers and nature led to
extensive research in the many plants that were traditionally grown in the
small cottage gardens in England. Her gardens were crowded together with myriad
plants of all colors, textures, and varieties of bloom. The result is a sort of
organized chaos. Our Cottage Garden attempts to incorporate many flowers and
shrubs in waves of color –white, blue, purple, pink, red, orange, and
yellow.
Wetland Garden
This garden demonstrates one way to add a water element to landscape. To solve the problem of stagnating water, a solar powered pump is used to circulate the water and keep algae, mosquitoes, and other pests at bay. In addition, the small waterfall re-oxygenates the pond, and also provides a peaceful natural sound to the environment.
The water garden itself showcases a variety of plants that thrive in this special environment. (Garden sponsored by Alcoa.)
Good-to-Grow Garden
The
Good-to-Grow garden showcases plants that grow easily and do well in our sometimes
challenging location in Southern Indiana.
Special emphasis is given to plants that can be started from seed. Selected varieties are singled out for
additional testing by Master Gardeners in their home gardens. Information on
these varieties is then compiled and made available to visitors.
Additionally
a Lasagna Garden test area showcases this novel method of gardening that uses
layers of different organic materials built up on top of the existing soil.
Visitors can compare the growth of plants in the lasagna garden with control
plants nearby. (Garden sponsored by
Walter Patterson, Jim Bratt and an anonymous donor.)
Garden in the Round
One of our newer gardens is the Garden in the Round, features our round gazebo, donated by Welborn Clinic. The garden was designed as a border garden encircling the gazebo.
Cool purples and pinks are highlighted in this garden with special attention given to foliage colors. Blooming shrubs, peonies, low-growing perennial bloomers, and vining clematis and morning glories are all featured in this garden. As they head to enjoy the shade of the gazebo, visitors can walk on decorative stepping-stones created by Master Gardeners.
Rock Garden
The Rock Garden features a sloping berm and is covered with Indiana sandstone boulders as well as smaller rocks. It has a natural look while providing pockets in which we plant a variety of evergreens, perennials, and bulbs. All plants in the Rock Garden were selected for their suitability to our climate, their tolerance of the full sun exposure, and the elevated soil temperatures from the rocks.
Evergreens add vertical structure to the garden while colorful perennials are grouped in the pockets. Spring blooming bulbs, summer and fall blooming shrubs, and perennial plants and winter color from red twig dogwood add up to year-round interest in this garden.
Sensory Garden
All gardens stimulate the obvious senses, specifically sight and smell. A sensory garden is specifically planned to stimulate all the senses by incorporating plants and other features to create an environment that reaches out and beckons one to come in, relax, and take time to appreciate the surroundings. Visitors to The Sensory Garden will experience it through sight, sound, smell, feel, and taste. Benches and an arbor within the Sensory Garden are inviting places to sit and enjoy the full range of sensory experiences.
Located on the eastern end of the Display Garden, the Sensory Garden is designed to be accessible along either the walking stone pathway, which leads into the garden, or on the paved trail featuring raised berms to give wheelchair-bound visitors an opportunity for a complete sensory experience. The plant selection and presentation allow even those with vision impairment to experience the wonders and pleasures of plants.
Compost Demo Project
Master Gardeners set up and maintain a composting area to show how gardeners can make and use compost in their own gardens using different compost bin designs. The compost bins use the hot composting method. They aerate readily, are easy to turn manually, and have sufficient volume to generate enough heat to kill most weed seeds.
Organic materials process naturally into useable compost in about a month using this method. All the green and brown plant materials from the Display Gardens are composted in this area.