Whether your interests run to heirloom varieties or the latest cultivars, you”ll find plants and techniques to improve your garden at Horticultural Field Day, Saturday, Aug. 17 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the West Madison Agricultural Research Station.

The 2001-2002 hardiness trials include 22 chrysanthemum cultivars, 38 varieties of ornamental grasses, and 20 cultivars of shrub roses. Variety flower trials include heirloom cannas, caladiums, cosmos, snapdragons, and a dried flower collection.

The station”s vegetable and fruit trial gardens will feature lime and clove basils, “Ariane” and orange pepper developed for the House of Orange, and “Purple Passion” asparagus, along with 10 grape cultivars, gooseberries, red, white and black currants, amelanchiers, strawberries, and new apple cultivars.

Speakers are scheduled throughout the day. UW-Madison Extension horticulture specialist Bob Tomesh will review heirloom tomatoes and grape production, and Columbia County Extension agent Laura Paine will discuss gardening with heirlooms. Plant pathologist Brian Hudelson will discuss diseases of vegetable crops, and Extension entomologist Phil Pelletteri will talk about insects in the home garden. Horticulturist Helen Harrison will discuss garden selections.

Food tasting will feature melons, agronomist Bill Tracy”s sweet corn from noon to 3 p.m., and all available ripe vegetables, including eight different colors of sweet peppers. Horticulturist Jim Nienhuis will offer salsa he made from a new breeding line of Italian tomatoes.

Horticulturist Laura Jull will answer questions at the hardy shrub rose trial bed from 10 a.m. to noon, and Janet Silbernagel of the landscape architecture department will discuss a bumblebee foraging study from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Staff from the UW Soils and Plant Analysis Lab will provide information on how and why you should start with proper soil.

Visitors are encouraged to bring insect and weed questions for the experts; please bring samples in plastic baggies. Dane County extension personnel and Master Gardeners will be on hand with publications and gardening advice.

The Alphabet Cow and Dottie Moo, fiberglass bovine luminaries from Cows on Parade, are visiting from Chicago, and Tom”s Tunes will perform old-time country music all day.

The field day is sponsored by station staff, researchers at the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, and UW-Extension staff. The West Madison station is at 8502 Mineral Point Road, about a mile west of the Beltline.