Craig Seymour

Colorado State University Extension Master Gardener in Larimer County
April 25, 2015

The new Colorado State University horticulture research center that is under construction off Center Avenue will be a top-notch facility for horticulture teaching and research and is an exciting result from the soon-to-be-built on-campus stadium.

The new CSU Horticulture Center will be 2,157 square feet of greenhouses and 6,200 square feet that includes offices, classrooms and a laboratory in the building. Included with the center will be 6.18 acres on the Spring Creek floodway just north of The Gardens on Spring Creek for outdoor research plots, plant trials and demonstration gardens. The greenhouses and building are to be completed by mid-summer and have the potential to be the most state-of-the-art facilities in North America. After October 1, many of the remaining trial gardens and research plots west of the quonsets on Lake Street will be moved to the new site.

The old greenhouses and Quonset huts at the existing facility at 630 West Lake Street – now in the footprint of the new stadium – were built in 1949 to support the Colorado carnation industry. Colorado was the top carnation producer in the world until its decline in the 1980s.

The remaining on-campus portion of the Plant Environmental Research Center (PERC), the CSU arboretum and perennial garden, will be improved. The CSU horticulture gardens will enhance the west side of the stadium. As another campus horticulture garden it will showcase both the horticulture and landscape architecture department and the CSU campus.

As funding for public higher education changes, universities and their colleges must rely on research dollars, grants and private funding to keep the college programs relevant to industry groups and the public to attract college students and faculty. To accomplish those goals the Horticulture and Landscape Architecture department must have up-to-date facilities, state-of-the-art equipment, a dynamic faculty and qualified staff. The Horticulture Center puts CSU on a new path for the future to become one of the premier horticulture programs in the western United States. My thanks to all involved in this extensive project.

The author has received training through Colorado State University Extension’s Master Gardener program and is a Master Gardener volunteer for Larimer County.

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Larimer County is a county-based outreach of Colorado State University Extension providing information you can trust to deal with current issues in agriculture, horticulture, nutrition and food safety, 4-H, small acreage, money management and parenting. For more information about CSU Extension in Larimer County, call (970) 498-6000 or visit www.larimer.org/ext

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Looking for additional gardening information? Check out the CSU Extension Horticulture Agent blog at www.csuhort.blogspot.com for timely updates about gardening around the state.

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Visit PlantTalk Colorado ™ for fast answers to your gardening questions! www.planttalk.org PlantTalk is a cooperation between Colorado State University Extension, GreenCo and Denver Botanic Gardens.