Each year, several counties across the state participate in the bedding plant trials.  These trials consist of new varieties of flowering annuals that have just been released onto the horticulture market. The purpose of the trials is to see how well these new varieties of plants perform in a garden or landscape setting.  For the trial garden, there are usually 20 different varieties of annual bedding plants with ten plants per variety for a total of 200 plants.  The Hopkins County trial garden is located at the Hopkins County Extension Service and is roughly a 16’ by 27’ garden plot. Within this plot, ten plants are placed per variety in a rough square or rectangle.  The placing of the plants in the garden plot typically depends on how the plant grows, whether it will clump or spread on the ground. The Pennyroyal Master Gardeners run the Hopkins County trial garden every year and form a committee to care for and evaluate the garden.  Once the plants arrive from the greenhouse grower, they are planted and watered sufficiently until established.  The master gardener committee typically mulches the garden bed and keeps up with the weeding.  They will occasionally deadhead spent flowers on plants as needed.  Once a month from June to October, the master gardener volunteers evaluate each variety of plant on an evaluation form using a 0 to 5 rating scale with 0 meaning that the plants are completely dead and 5 meaning that the plants are healthy with no pest or disease issue and have full color/foliage.  At the end of October, the evaluation forms are sent to the UK Research and Education Center in Princeton, KY where they are analyzed.  The data collected from the evaluations is published into a report. The results of the report provide helpful information to Kentucky gardeners wishing to grow these varieties in their own gardens and landscapes.