Fort Bend County Master Gardeners help maintain a number of demonstration gardens. We invite you to visit our 4 acres of Demonstration Gardens and take a self-guided tour. Maps are available onsite. It’s a great way to learn! Who knows! You might be there when master gardeners are working and you can talk to the volunteers who design and maintain them. Park in front of the Agriculture Center located at 1402 Band Road, Rosenberg, 77471.
What will you see?
- Specialty Gardens – gardens planted with a special focus or purpose
- Texas Gardens – gardens featuring Texas hardy plants
- Food Production Gardens – gardens that produce edible products, either as the main or secondary objective
- Trial Gardens – gardens that will help Fort Bend County residents know what or how to best grow certain plants or plant varieties.
In addition to the demonstration gardens, there is also an area that demonstrates composting. You can read more about this area in Composting – Gardening Area of the Month by Garreta Kipp, Fort Bend Master Gardener.
If you cannot come in person, check out this month’s featured garden!
Photo credit: Julie Evett, Fort Bend Master Gardener
Our Demonstration Gardens are open for visitors to tour. Let us be your inspiration! If you choose to visit, this map might be helpful to you in finding your way around or going directly to the area you most wish to visit.
Why Demonstration Gardens?
Our Demonstration Gardens are used for many purposes but our primary goal is to determine how well certain plants perform in the Fort Bend County area. We ask questions such as:
- Will this (tomato, berry, peach) variety produce here? If so, how much fruit can we expect to get from one plant in a season? Is the fruit tasty, fleshy, firm, large, small, etc.?
- Can this variety be cut and rooted here?
- Will the growth rate of this variety be increased with the addition of compost, more water, organic fertilizer?
Of course, our gardens are also used to train Master Gardeners in horticultural skills. We get hands-on training in planting techniques, transplanting, rooting, plant identification, landscape design, insect control and identification, and many other areas.
These skills are not classroom based. We get our hands dirty on our workdays!