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[Lawn & Garden Home] [Nutrients & Fertilizer] [Demonstration Garden]

Demonstration Garden and Lawn

A demonstration garden at the Grand Lake Visitor Center (9630 Hwy 59 North, 1 mile south of Sailboat Bridge) highlights less polluting lawn/garden management practices and strategies.

The garden (shown to the right) includes 3 raised beds and a lawn: 

• Native plant garden (on right)

• Vegetable garden (back center) - new raised bed with lower nutrient soil

• Herb garden (on left)

• Nice lawn with low nutrient levels in the soil

Oklahoma Native Flower Garden

Flowers native to Oklahoma have the following benefits:

• Adapted to the local climate - low need for fertilizing and watering
• More resistant to problems related to local pests - low need for insecticides
• Attract native wildlife - f. ex. -butterflies need specific native plants to metamorphose from caterpillars
• Beautiful

In all, there are 32 different Oklahoma native plants in the garden that are visible at different times of the year. 

FREE DOWNLOAD!! Download a file with photos of all 32 plants in the garden with information about bloom time, needed soil conditions, sun requirements, etc. 

Instructions: (PC users: right-click on the link below and choose "Save Link Target As..." to save the file onto your  computer.  Mac users: please hold down the mouse button over the link below to save the file.)

Native plants document (1 MB - MS Word document) 

A few photos of flowers from the native plant garden:

Purple Coneflower	Rose Verbena
Ohio Spiderwort	Wine Cups
Sweet Black-eyed Susan	Spanish Needles
Pale Purple Coneflower	Indian Paintbrush
Mexican Hats

Come back often to see how the same garden changes over time!

Early Spring	Early Summer

Herb Garden - The herb garden contains several hearty plants including mint, sage, basil, chives, etc.

Herb Garden	Chives
Oregano	Purple basil
Blue Sage

Vegetable Garden

• The vegetable garden contains pest-resistant tomatoes, and other vegetables.
• The nutrient levels are managed mainly with compost created onsite, only when a soil test indicates the need.

Demonstration Lawn

The Visitor Center has a great lawn with low impact on water quality because it:

• Currently uses no commercial fertilizer

• Has suitable, yet low, nutrient values in a recent soil test (April 2006)

  • pH: 7.1

  • Nitrate-N: 6 lbs/acre

  • Soil Test Phosphorus (P) Index: 43 lbs/acre

  • Soil Test Potassium (K)  Index: 266 lbs/acre

Compare this to the soil and compost mixture that was brought in for the first two raised bed gardens.  This soil turned out to be excessively high in nutrients:

• pH: 7.2

• Nitrate-N: 289 lbs/acre

• Soil Test Phosphorus (P): 612 lbs/acre  (300 lbs/acre is the maximum allowed for agricultural fields)

• Soil Test Potassium (K): 2893 lbs/acre

These results forced us to find local soils with a lower potential for leaching nutrients.  The final raised bed, now the vegetable garden, has such a soil. 

NOTE:  Bringing in soil for your lawn or garden may result in adding a nutrient pollution source to your landscape.

Related photos

See photos of the garden construction and planting:

• Construction of raised beds (Click here to see how it was done)

• Planting of a summer vegetable garden with volunteers from the Delaware County Master Gardener Program (Click here for photos)

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