This is part of our continuing coverage of the Farwest Show. This post concerns Day Two of the Farwest Show Tours, specifically, Tour 3, the New Plants Tour on Wednesday, August 22, 2012. Keep checking back for updates, or follow @FarwestShow on Twitter.

Our final stop on the New Plants Tour was The Oregon Garden. This nursery industry showcase for the state of Oregon contains hundreds of acres of gardens. Some are kept in a highly formal state, while others are in a more natural condition. There’s a children’s garden, the Silverton Market Garden for edibles, and the Rediscovery Forest — a former Christmas tree planting now used as an experimental area. One of the highlights of The Oregon Garden unquestionably would be the Conifer Garden, which has some 500 different cultivars and serves as the reference garden for the West Coast Conifer Society.

All of these are good reasons to come and see The Oregon Garden. However, the reason it was included in today’s tour was the presence of several trial garden areas. Burpee, Ball, Benary, PanAmerican Seed, Sahin, Takii and Keft are among the breeders represented. There’s also a separate garden that includes winners from the AllAmerican Selections program. If that’s not enough, a special American Garden Award area — one of several such across the United States — presents a group of selections and allows visitors to text their votes to help determine a winner.

Check the Farwest Show Facebook page to see photos of flowers from all of the trial gardens, but be aware — this is just a sampling of the flowers on display.

We will be back tomorrow with live coverage of the Farwest Show. If you see something interesting going on and want to share, drop by the OAN Resource Center on the Farwest Show expo floor (noon–6 p.m.), or drop me a line at ckipp@oan.org.