Score next year's bedding plants alongside the industry judges
A research trial you get a vote in
Roughly three acres of annual trial beds on the Colorado State University campus, free and open daily with no gate.
Why it's unique
This is not a display garden. It is a working trial ground where over a thousand annual varieties are grown and scored for how they cope with high-altitude sun, hail and swings in temperature, and the results feed into what nurseries across the region stock.
The part you can take part in is the public evaluation day, when visitors score the plants alongside the breeders and industry judges. Plenty of cities have a botanic garden; being handed a scoresheet at a university research trial and having your opinion counted is a different proposition, and it is free.
Before you go
Timing is everything and the window is narrow. Mid-July through August is when the beds are at full stretch; in May it is bare soil and plant labels, which is a wasted trip. The public evaluation day is a single announced date, so check the garden's events page before building a visit around it.
The labels are the point, not decoration. Each bed is a named cultivar under test, so the garden reads as an argument about which plants survive Colorado rather than as a display.