Gardening Resources
Ways to Learn During a Visit
Plant Collections
You may not feel like you’re in the middle of a museum when you visit Powell Gardens, but you are! Powell Gardens is a living museum with a rapidly growing collection.
Through a grant in 2020, the Powell Gardens’ collection moved to a platform allowing public access. Explore our living collection, features, and garden tours online with Garden Explorer.
Plant Evaluations & Introductions
Powell Gardens horticulture staff keeps a keen eye on plants on-site and throughout the region, always looking for plants with a unique set of characters that may make it a great garden plant. When such a plant is found it is often propagated and grown in our evaluation gardens or nurseries. To date, Powell Gardens has selected eight unique plants, all American native trees, shrubs and one vine and we have a license agreement for their commercial production and sale.
One seedling tomato has also been selected for its uniqueness for the edible landscape and culinary use. If you have or know of a special plant we are willing to test it and/or provide you with the right contacts for its potential introduction into the seed and/or nursery trade.
Gardening Classes
Our adult education program provides the chance for you to learn from our talented horticulture staff.
Use these resources from Powell Gardens to help your own garden and landscape thrive:
- Regional Native Plants for Landscapes (PDF)
- Insectaries Garden Plants: Great Plants to Attract Pollinators and Beneficial Bugs
- Staff Picks: Drought-Resistant Plants for Greater Kansas City (PDF)
- A Tree List for Greater KC with Ecosystem Services in mind (PDF)
- Champion Trees of Greater Kansas City
- Gardening Task Checklists by Season (PDF)
- Beware the Invasives: A List of Plants to Avoid (PDF)
- New for 2016: The Island Garden’s Best Waterlilies (PDF)
Local plant societies are excellent sources of information:
- Greater Kansas City Dahlia Society
- Greater Kansas City Herb Study Group
- Greater Kansas City Iris Society
- Heart of America Gesnariad Society
- Kansas City Cactus and Succulent Society
- Mid-America Begonia Society
- Mo-Kan Daylily Society
- Orchid Society of Greater Kansas City
Learn more about local garden groups at The Kansas City Gardener.
Plenty of additional resources can help guide your gardening endeavors. Here are a few we recommend:
State Extension Offices
K-State Research & Extension: Find monthly garden calendars, answers to common plant problems, information about Master Gardeners and more.
University of Missouri Extension: Learn how to test your soil and find links to state-specific gardening information.
Plant Information
- Digital Powell Gardens Herbarium, created and directed by UMKC Professor Tamas Kapros, Ph. D., and team.
- Recommended Trees for Greater KC by Robert Whitman of Gould Evans
- Great Plants for the Great Plains (Nebraska Statewide Arboretum)
- Grow Native (Missouri native plants)
- Plants of Merit (plants proven to perform well in Missouri)
- Deep Roots KC
