Jul 28, 2019

A Friday Trip to the Gardens By Tim Hodson

Last Friday, Jasmina Dolce, Bob Bellew and I attended Ball Seed’s 2019 Field Day and Landscape Day at the Gardens at Ball located at Ball Horticultural Co.’s headquarters in West Chicago, Illinois.

The team at Ball Seed rolled out the red carpet for visitors and Mother Nature was on her very best behavior as we strolled through the Gardens to check out the many different displays, product demonstrations, lab tours, trial gardens and more.

For over 80 years now, the Gardens at Ball have been the evaluation and testing grounds for so many of the industry’s new variety introductions and improvements.

According to the company, this year the Gardens have more than 4,000 varieties from 90 different breeders on display — including 300+ new seed and vegetative introductions for 2020.

Originally created as a row trial garden for seed varieties in 1933, the Gardens at Ball have grown to encompass nearly 10 acres of display beds for annuals, perennials, cut flowers and vegetables, including the newest plants from the industry’s leading breeders and marketers.

It is an excellent opportunity to see how many of the new introductions that we first saw at California Spring Trials in March are performing in the Midwest — and catch up with a lot of different industry friends.

Jasmina posted a few photos for the event on the GPN Facebook and Instagram pages. I also posted a handful of pix on my Facebook page.

Be sure to check them out.

— Tim