For One Day. One KU. in 2023, we have chosen the KU Native Medicinal Plant Research Garden as the featured beneficiary of gifts to our research center. This site, immediately north of Lawrence, Kansas, was established in 2010 as part of a study of native prairie plants’ medicinal properties and uses by Native peoples. The garden quickly became such a valuable teaching and outreach site for KU students and the public that we made a commitment to maintain it permanently. Our scientists, students and staff host regular tours here and maintain several of the garden's original rows of native medicinal plants, including echinacea, mint and white sage. The site is open every day, dawn to dusk. Your gift for the garden today will support research, education and outreach. (You also may make a general gift to our research center.)
Many students from KU and Haskell Indian Nations University have worked together at the garden as environmental studies interns. KU student groups maintain a community vegetable garden at the site and have donated thousands of pounds of produce to the Just Food pantry in Lawrence, and the KU Bee Club maintains hives in a far corner of the garden. Several ecological research projects have taken place here, as well as KU student research in other disciplines including journalism, art and engineering.
The Douglas County Extension Master Gardeners also have worked with us since 2015 to maintain the demonstration garden area and have restored a small prairie plot. Classes from KU, Haskell and Prairie Moon Waldorf School (next door), as well as staff, alumni and community groups visit and use the garden regularly.
The Native Medicinal Plant Research Garden is the smallest site of the KU Field Station, which our research center maintains, and serves as a gateway to the Field Station’s 1,800-acre core research area and public trails, three miles north. This vibrant garden continues to serve our community—as it did during the most restrictive periods of the COVID-19 pandemic—as a place for refreshment, inspiration, education and shared experiences.
