Want to Visit a Trial Garden? There's One at the Indiana State Fairgrounds.

If you’re heading to the Indiana State Fair this week, there’s a working trial garden right on the grounds that most gardeners have no idea is there — and it’s open year-round, not just for the Fair.

The Purdue Extension-Marion County Demonstration Garden is a real display garden where you can see annuals, vegetables, new varieties, and different gardening techniques growing under actual Indianapolis conditions. That matters, because there’s a big difference between reading a plant tag and seeing what a plant actually looks like outside in August.

Purdue Extension-Marion County staff and Master Gardener volunteers created the garden at the fairgrounds in 2012. Planting began that June, and by the time the State Fair arrived, it was ready for visitors — more than 6,500 people stopped by during that first fair.

It’s grown from there: raised beds, different irrigation and trellising methods, and a rotating mix of annuals, vegetables, succulents, native plants, and hanging baskets over the years. Most of the vegetables produced there aren’t wasted, either — Purdue says most of the fresh produce is donated to local food pantries.

Here’s the part I find especially interesting. In 2013, the garden became an official All-America Selections Flower and Vegetable Display Garden — the only one in Indianapolis and one of fewer than a half-dozen in all of Indiana.

If you’ve gardened for a while, you’ve probably seen “AAS Winner” on a plant tag or seed packet. All-America Selections is an independent plant-testing organization that’s been evaluating new flowers and vegetables since the 1930s. New varieties are grown in trial locations and compared against existing ones, and judges look for a real improvement — better flowering, stronger garden performance, disease resistance, improved flavor, or another trait that gives gardeners a reason to grow it. The ones that perform well enough earn the AAS Winner designation. At a display garden, you get to see some of those winners growing for yourself.

Most people don’t realize you can visit when the Fair isn’t happening. It sits in the northwest corner of the fairgrounds, about 350 feet east of Discovery Hall. Outside the State Fair, Purdue says there’s no charge to visit the garden or to park at its entrance; during the Fair, normal admission and parking apply.

That’s the real value — you can come back through summer and fall and watch the same plants change as the season goes. A plant can look fantastic in May. What I want to know is what it looks like in August: How did it handle the heat? Is it still flowering? Did disease become a problem? Would I actually want to grow it? Those questions are hard to answer from a catalog and easy to answer when the plant is right in front of you.

And it’s apparently worth finding: during the 2025 State Fair the garden averaged more than 1,000 visitors a day, and it later won first place in its category in the national AAS Landscape Design Challenge. So if you’re at the Fair this week — grab your elephant ear, look at some livestock, ride something you probably shouldn’t after eating that elephant ear — and go look at some plants. You might find something you’ll want to grow next year.

Reference: Purdue University Extension-Marion County · All-America Selections