​Have you visited our Teaching & Display Garden? This is a wonderful visit to make during this socially distant summer. Kevin Schoessow, Area Ag Development Agent, takes you on a tour of the popular pinwheel bed of the gardens. These beds have been "adopted" by Master Gardener Volunteers and reflect their different visions. Our gardens are open for self-guided tours during all daylight hours. Please follow the social distancing guidelines that are posted.

Reprinted from the Spooner Agricultural Research StationFacebook page. 

​Have you been out to enjoy our Teaching & Display Garden? Station staff and Master Gardener Volunteers work tirelessly every year to bring you this beautiful garden to visit and learn from. In this video, Kevin Schoessow takes you on an aerial tour of what it looks light right now. You will see some familiar beds and catch up on what's new this year. As always, our garden is open for self-guided tours at any time. We just ask that you follow proper social distancing and keep your group small so that all may feel safe while enjoying the garden.

Master Gardener Volunteers (MGV) maintain multiple garden projects at Forts Folle Avoine Historical Park in Burnett County. To create a welcoming space, native and heirloom gardens surround the visitor center. Vegetables are also grown on site and used as part of a fundraising dinner. To raise additional money for the historical society, MGVs provide education during a plant sale to the public. 

Education was also the focus when twenty-eight tea-loving history buffs turned out for a garden party at the Historical Park for a presentation on “Herbs: Now and Then” which covered how herbs were used for culinary and medicinal purposes in the past and how the same herbs are used today. 

The University of Wisconsin Extension, The Spooner Agriculture Research Station and North Country Master Gardener Volunteers will be holding their Annual Twilight Garden Tour on Tuesday Aug 13th from 4 - 7:30 PM.  This is one of the region’s premier summer gardening events and will feature University speakers, demonstrations, displays, food tastings and walking tour of the Seed to Kitchen Collaborative, and organic vegetable variety research trial partnering with nationally recognized plant breeders, chefs and local growers.  The venue for the Twilight Garden Tour is the award-winning Teaching & Display Garden located on Orchard Lane, just east of Spooner.
 
Speakers will be PJ Leisch, UW-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab Director; Brian Hudelson, UW-Madison Plant Disease Diagnostic Clinic Director; and Brian Smith, UW-River Falls Professor of Horticulture.
 
Master Gardener Volunteers and invited speakers will be available to answer your gardening questions and identify plant, insect and disease samples.
 
The Teaching & Display Garden is an official All-America Selections (AAS) display garden featuring both flowers and vegetables and has been awarded multiple awards in the National Landscape Design contest sponsored by AAS. The garden also includes organic vegetable gardening, a children’s garden, container gardening, displays of table and wine grapes and fruit trees and the newly renovated Monarch and Pollinator Sanctuary perennial garden.
 
As in the past there is no charge for this educational events.  
 
The Teaching and Display Gardens are located on Orchard Lane, 1 mile east of Spooner on Highway 70.  Watch for Garden Tour signs.  For more information please contact Kevin Schoessow at 715-635-3506 or 1-800-528-1914, or online at http://spooner.ars.wisc.edu or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/spoonerag.
 
UW-Extension provides equal opportunity in employment and programming including Title IX and ADA requirements.  Please call our toll free number if you have any special needs or require special accommodations.
 
 
Lorraine Toman
University of Wisconsin-Madison
University of Wisconsin-Extension
Spooner Agricultural Research Station
W6646 Highway 70
Spooner, WI  54801
 
715-635-3735
715-635-3506
Toll-Free:  800-528-1914
FAX:  715-635-6741
711 for Wisconsin Relay
lltoman@wisc.edu
http://spooner.ars.wisc.edu/
https://www.facebook.com/spoonerag

​The North Country Master Gardener Volunteer Association invites everyone to our annual Twilight Garden Tour on Tuesday August 13 starting at 4:00 p.m. and closing around 7:30 p.m.  The event will be in the Spooner Agriculture Research Station Teaching and Display Gardens at 780 Orchard Lane, Spooner.  The gardens are located 1 ½ miles east of Spooner on Highway 70 or ½ mile west of the Highway 70/53 interchange.  All ages are invited to attend and there will be handicap parking near the gardens.

2019 is the year of the Dahlia!
Picking a favorite dahlia is like going through a button box. As well as coming in a rainbow of colors, dahlia flowers can range in size from petite 2-inch lollipop-style pompoms to giant 15-inch “dinner plate” blooms. Most varieties grow 4 to 5 feet tall.  
They are considered a tender perennial in cold regions North America. They are only winter hardy in planting zones 8 to 11. Gardeners in zones 2 to 7 can simply plant dahlia tubers in the spring and either treat them as annuals or dig them up and store for winter.

​If you are traveling in the Philadelphia area I highly recommend this list of gardens, all quite different.  Seeing woodland spring ephemerals in different settings taught me a new appreciation for what I tend to take for granted here at home.   Anytime during their long growing season these gardens will teach, display and provide pleasure to their visitors.  

​Morris Arboretum – As the name implies the arboretum is a teaching and research facility of the University of Pennsylvania.  It is set on the historic grounds of the summer home of John and Lydia Morris.  They have informative displays of trees, shrubs, and woodland perennials.  

​Longwood Gardens – One of many du Pont family gardens in the area.  The gardens are spread about on 1,100 acres of highly manicured display gardens.  We were there for six hours, more than enough time to see almost everything and spend time in their excellent garden shop.  According to their website they raise 75 percent of the plants used in their displays onsite producing about 110,000 plants of 1,000 different varieties.  Nearby is Kennett Square, a tidy small town with many retail shops and restaurants. 

​Mt. Cuba Center – The Center is set in the rolling hills of the Delaware Piedmont near Wilmington.   The property was developed by Mr. and Mrs. Lammot du Pont Copeland.  Mrs. Copeland is quoted in their intention for the property: “I want this to be a place where people will learn to appreciate our native plants and to see how these plants can enrich their lives so that they, in turn, will become conservators of our natural habitats.”.  If you go, I recommend scheduling a tour by one of their very knowledgeable tour guides.  If you can’t go to Mt. Cuba Center, you can still learn much by going to their website.  I have bookmarked as one of my favorites the native plant finder.  

​Winterthur – The home of Henry Francis du Pont, the 1,000 acres near Wilmington, DE includes 60 acres naturalist gardens, a research library, shops, museum, and the mansion chock full of American textiles and furniture.  The gardens are more in the background of Winterthur given all the other attractions of this property.  

​Chanticleer  - This garden was the last we visited, and I think the best.  Chanticleer is set on 47 acres of the former home of the Rosengarten family, members of the family still guide the foundation that manages the property.  This unique property employs seven Horticulturists who are each responsible for an area of the grounds.  Chanticleer advertises itself as a pleasure garden and definitely lives up to that name.  We felt as if we were invited guests, the horticulturists and grounds staff were about the grounds ready to answer our questions.  

What a treat to have visited these gardens, each one unique in its own way.  And the Winnebago Master Gardener Volunteers are wonderful traveling companions.  

​Author:  Sue Reinardy, UW-Extension Master Gardener Volunteer