FireWise Demonstration Gardens at Josephine County Fairgrounds…
No Pesticides Used Here!
When visiting the Josephine County Fairgrounds be sure to check out the five Fire-Wise Demonstration Gardens along the left side of the main thoroughfare. They are an educational project designed, planted and maintained by members of Sustainable Rogue Valley.
The themes demonstrate ways fire-resistant plantings can benefit homeowners and their families, as well as important and struggling pollinators and butterflies which, because of human activities, have experienced an alarming drop in their numbers.
The beds include: a Permaculture Garden bursting with grapes, asparagus, strawberries, and figs, a Bee and Pollinator Garden enticing insects with catmint and lavender, a Monarch Butterfly Garden featuring two kinds of local milkweed, a Native Edibles Garden with hazelnuts and huckleberries ready to eat, and a Rain Garden actively replenishing the water table.
Many beds include interesting features such as an Insect Hotel, a Mason Bee house, and a Pollinator Watering “Station”. The Butterfly Garden has already played host to Monarch caterpillars, hatched from eggs laid on the milkweed plants by passing butterflies! And the birdhouses in the Permaculture Garden are homes to swallows and chickadees each spring. All the plants are fire-resistant.
No pesticides or chemicals of any kind are used in the gardens, keeping them healthy for everyone from butterflies, pollinators, toads and humans to the microorganisms in the soil.
Members of the local Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Master Gardeners, Fairgrounds Board members, the local Soil and Water Conservation District (who got the grant to fund it), and friends, helped Sustainable Rogue Valley members prepare and plant the beds. Fairgrounds employees help keep them watered.
Here are the beds in the order you will find them from the entrance to the Fairgrounds. Each one has a page where you can learn more:
#2 Bees and Pollinators Garden
#5 Rain Garden
sustainableroguevalley.org 