Home & Garden
The LSU AgCenter Hammond Research Station
Louisiana’s Own Plant Whisperer
DR. JEB FIELDS READILY ADMITS to being a plant nerd. “Everyone here is,” he says. “We could talk about plants all day.” The “everyone” he’s referring to is the team he heads up at the LSU AgCenter Research Station in Hammond. As an assistant professor and extension specialist for the college and director of the Hammond research facility, Dr. Fields is absolutely in his element. “The real purpose of the station is to teach and promote horticulture any way we can,” he says. They do this in myriad ways. “One of our goals is that when you buy a plant at a local nursery or when you hire someone to design and plant your landscape, the plants you buy are those that will thrive in our climate.” By working with local nurseries and landscapers, the research team seeks to ensure that whatever you as a South Louisiana gardener buy has been university-tested and industry-approved for the unique characteristics and challenges of our South Louisiana environment. Another goal is to partner with those same landscapers and nurseries to keep their industries growing and thriving. 38
Inside Northside
The research station that once focused on fruit and vegetable crops—with an emphasis on strawberries—transitioned about 18 years ago to concentrate on ornamental plants. The 140-acre campus on Old Covington Highway in Hammond includes walking gardens. Although, first COVID and then Hurricane Ida closed the gardens to the public, Dr. Fields is happy to announce they’ll be reopening on weekdays this month, just in time for all those glorious spring blooms. Although the layout of the gardens predates his tenure, Dr. Fields says it’s one of the things that attracted him to his current position. “Ours is one of the largest trial gardens in the Southeast U.S. Most other trial gardens are laid out in rows, but we do ours in an aesthetic landscape form, the way you’d do at home. So, you have the appeal of a public garden, but every plant here is being tested.” In fact, Dr. Fields and his team test over four thousands plants a year. “We have plants sent to us from around the state, around the country and around the world,” he says. “If a plant does well in
photos: ASHLEY EDWARDS
by Mimi Greenwood Knight
