Annual summer tour of KU medicinal garden June 13

LAWRENCE—The public is invited to the semi-annual tour of the University of Kansas Native Medicinal Plant Research Garden at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 13. The tour will take place rain or shine.

The garden, situated just east of Lawrence Municipal Airport, includes research plantings, a large show garden and the KU Student Farm. Garden pathways are ADA-compliant, and the site is open to the public dawn to dusk. Kelly Kindscher, senior scientist at the Kansas Biological Survey and a professor in KU’s Environmental Studies Program, will lead the tour.

Several other types of research studies also are based at the five-acre site, including a collaboration with scientists from the University of California, Davis, on the Kansan brood of 17-year cicadas, which emerged in late May this year.

The garden, established in 2010, serves as a gateway to the KU Field Station, as it is the first of several Field Station sites on East 1600 Road in Douglas County north of Highway 40. Land for the garden site was made available by KU Endowment.

The KU Field Station is managed by the Kansas Biological Survey. The core area of the Field Station, north of Lawrence, consists of 1,800 acres with five miles of public trails. 

A map and directions to the garden are available here.