(Union City, Tenn., April 17, 2025) — Discovery Park of America in Union City has been selected by All-America Selections (AAS) as the newest location for an All-America Selections Display Garden, the first in Northwest Tennessee. AAS is North America’s most well-known nonprofit plant trialing organization.

The new AAS Display Garden is one of several new agriculture and horticulture elements visitors will experience at the 50-acre heritage park this spring and summer.

New additions to come include an inaugural members-only plant sale, the opening of the Guy Robbins Hosta Garden and tours of the park’s gardens, vineyard, observation beehive, pollinator garden and native habitat zone planted by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. Other highlights will include row crop plots of cotton, corn and soybeans, a heritage plot featuring tobacco, a self-guided tour map and outdoor classes and programs for children and adults.

AAS conducts impartial trials of new, never-before-sold annual ornamentals, perennials and vegetables throughout the U.S. and Canada. Each fall, the organization accepts entries of new plant varieties that have not yet reached the market. The entries are tested at more than 50 locations. Only the top-performing varieties are named AAS Winners and distributed to a network of more than 200 display gardens.

The 2025 AAS national winners include Dianthus Capitan Magnifica and Zinnia Zydeco Fire. Both will be included in Discovery Park’s new display garden.

“The purpose of an AAS Display Garden is to showcase the most recent AAS Winners, label them appropriately and educate the public about why they are top-performing varieties,” said John Watkins, Discovery Park’s director of grounds. “With our recent focus on horticulture and agriculture, we believed the mission of AAS aligns very nicely with that of Discovery Park, and we’re glad they agreed.”

Discovery Park opened a permanent exhibit on agricultural innovation, “AgriCulture: Innovating for Our Survival,” in the Simmons Bank Ag Center in 2020. The Farm Credit Mid-America Education Pavilion and greenhouses were added in 2023.

The new greenhouses have made it possible to offer some of the park’s plants to members. A members-only plant sale will be held Saturday, April 26, 2025, from 8 a.m. to noon. A limited selection of flowers and vegetables will be available, including annuals like begonias, petunias and salvias, perennials such as Shasta daisies, daylilies and ornamental grasses and unique vegetable and herb varieties grown by the park’s grounds team, including Orange Hat dwarf tomatoes and jalapeño pumpkin spice peppers. Entrance for the sale will be at the North Gate.

Discovery Park’s native habitat zone, planted in May 2020 by a team led by USDA-NRCS biologist Mike Hansbrough, features native pollinator plants and shrubs selected specifically for wildlife habitat enhancement. Pollinator plant seeds from Roundstone Native Seed — including milkweed, which is critical for monarch butterflies — and 200 Chickasaw plum and false indigo bush seedlings from the Division of Forestry’s East Tennessee Nursery were used to first establish this zone.

“Native shrubs are getting harder to find in our West Tennessee landscape due to a myriad of factors that include urban development and the clearing of hedgerows in agricultural areas,” Hansbrough said. “I am grateful Discovery Park is providing a space for guests to see these shrubs up close to inspire them to grow them at their own homes and farms as they are a valuable source of cover and food for a wide range of wildlife.”

While the heritage garden has been a part of Discovery Park for several years, a new heritage plot will be added in 2025 next to the native habitat zone’s pollinator plot. The heritage plot will feature a living trellis draped with luffas and gourds, a variety of watermelon types, towering sunflowers and tobacco to showcase historic vining and large row crops.

New signage and a self-guided agriculture and horticulture tour map will be available at the ticket counter beginning in May 2025.

Photo Caption: Discovery Park of America grounds director John Watkins and assistant grounds director Sarah Hatfield review plans for the new All-America Selections Display Garden, soon to be planted in the museum and heritage park’s 50-acre grounds.

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