Guelph Trial Garden - at the Guelph Turfgrass Institute

           The purpose of this trial is to highlight plant material growing in both ground beds and containers. All of the plants that are grown at the Milton landscape Trial and the Vineland Pack Trial are grown for the full growing season in Guelph. Other plants and programs are also part of the Guelph trial. These include: All America Selections judging trial, Association of Specialty Cutflower Growers, Blooms of Bressingham, Vanhof and Blokker, lily perennialization trial.

For information about this year’s Public Open House, click here. (171KB)

For information about this year’s Horticultural Industry Open House, click here. (478KB)

Landscape Trial - Milton

            The purpose of this trial is to highlight bedding plants that are specifically useful for landscape applications.  The planting pattern differs from a traditional trial garden in that an attempt has been made to show off the trial plant material by applying landscape design principles to the trial beds.  This year the Landscape Trial Garden at Milton will display plant material from Goldsmith Seeds and the Ball Horticultural Co.  Some of this material is new to the marketplace while other cultivars have been around a while but haven’t been widely adopted yet for landscape use. A number of perennials are included in the mix of bedding plants as well.  Three of the four beds in the trial are irrigated while the fourth is designated as a drought tolerance test plot – some of the plants entered in the trial have been especially chosen for their drought tolerance potential.

For information about this year’s Horticultural Industry Open House, click here.(478 KB)

Vineland Pack Trial – Vineland Research Station

            The Vineland Pack Trial is a two part trial which firstly evaluates greenhouse performance of the entries during the time of the year when most greenhouse growers in Ontario are also producing these plants for the spring bedding plant market.  The second evaluation takes place in the field during the summer.  The same plants that were grown in the greenhouse are transplanted into containers and/or field plots to be grown outside at the Vineland Research Station and the Guelph Trial Garden.  Specific categories of vegetatively- (and a small quantity of seed-) propagated plant material were entered in this trial.

            This year the open house for the greenhouse portion of the pack trial was held in May.