Master Gardener Demo Garden

Vegetable Garden
Perennial Garden
Children's Garden
Critters in the Garden
Directions to the Garden
Supporters & Donors

The Demonstration Garden was conceived and is maintained by Master Gardeners on the grounds of Our Saviour's Lutheran Church in Horseheads. The demo garden serves as a teaching and trials garden. Saturday garden clinics are held periodically through the growing season enabling hands-on learning for the community. Each year a different vegetable or fruit is trialed informally by the Master Gardeners such as early tomato varieties or potatoes.

The garden is located in a high deer traffic area, and is also plagued by woodchucks and rabbits. How to deal with critters in the garden.

Vegetable Garden

Following is a list of veggie varieties planted in the demonstration garden this year. There is room for more plants, now, and there will be even more room after harvesting beets, lettuce and cabbage. Master gardeners would like to add Brussels Sprouts, carrots, and some summer greens.

There are two perennial borders in the demonstration garden. These two borders form the outside circles and boundaries for the labyrinth Our Savior's Church members installed. Early flower color is provided by Spring Bulbs and Iris. Color is then continued through to Fall with plantings of daylily, perennial geraniums, daisies, sedums, purple and white coneflowers, liatris, verbenas, astilbes, penstemon, campanulas, coreopsis, delphiniums, & rudebeckia. Lamb's ear, silver mound and phlox are ground covers.

Children's Garden

• The Herbs Garden
  The herbs garden contains a wide variety of herbs. Herbs add beauty to the landscape and have a variety of uses. Herbs here are: sage, thyme, dill, lemon balm, winter sorrel and lavender.
• The Edible Flower Garden
• The Dahlia Garden
• The Butterfly Garden
This garden is part of the children's garden. Butterflies are intriguing, especially to children. Observing their behavior encourages scientific inquiry. Butterflies are attracted to masses of colorful sweet scented flowers. They feed on nectar, preferring flowers that like sun. Flowers in this garden include: sweet allysum, heliotrope, choreopsis, lantana and verbena.
• The Pumpkin Garden

Donors

Thank you to these sponsors and donors. Without their support, these gardens would not be possible.

Banfield-Baker Corporation
Bradley Farms
Chapel Lumber
Chase-Pitkin Home & Garden
Farmer’s Garden Center
Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse
Penn State Seed
Rorick Gardens
Sonora’s Gardens
Tenax Company Landware, a division of Tenax, is a manufacturer of plastic fences and nets and a distributor of many unique lawn and garden items. Located in Baltimore, Maryland, we are more than just orange safety fence, we strive to enclose solutions one yard at a time.
Treegator® (Spectrum Products, Inc.) Treegator Drip Irrigation Bags® for trees are the ideal watering solution for newly planted or established trees.

Critters in the Garden

The garden is located in a high deer traffic area. Besides deer, the garden is plagued by woodchucks and rabbits. Great attention has been paid to preventing animal feeding injury. Although fencing is the recommendation for keeping deer out of the garden, we realise it is not a practical solution for the home gardener.

The Master Gardeners are using a variety of controls in the demonstration garden. Re-may or floating row cover is utilized with direct seeding and young tender transplants. A lightweight mobile cold frame is also used in the vegetable garden. In 2002 we noticed the deer only ate what was hanging outside the tomato cage, so a wider cage was hand made with reinforced wire. The cages are also taller than usual. Various repellants are used on the non-edible plants.

Directions to the Garden

• Take Exit 52 off I-86 (Route 17) to Route 14 North
  (also called Westinghouse Road).
• The demonstration garden is located at Our Saviour's Lutheran Church, 2872 Westinghouse Road, Horseheads, NY.