UT Gardens expert shares tips you can use

JACKSON, Tenn. — A landscaping and gardening expert from the University of Tennessee Gardens in Jackson shared tips you can use.

Jason Reeves, a curator at UT Gardens, said that most people only use fertilizers for their vegetable garden. However, by fertilizing outdoor plants growing in pots and containers, you can improve their resistance to winter temperatures.

After the freeze last winter, many homeowners lost many varieties of plants in their home gardens.

Experts say now is the proper time to fertilize to ensure they have the best chance of surviving a sudden drop in temperature in the coming winter months.

He also mentioned deadheading plants, which is removing the spent flowers, or the old flowers.

“So we’re going come in and carefully remove these old flower heads. So you just go down to the first set of leaves and remove that flower head. Again, that encourages new growth and new flowers to come along,” Reeves said.

That improves the health and beauty of your garden.

Reeves said another tip is selecting good pollinator plants. Choosing plants that support natural pollinators can improve the health and well-being of these essential organisms.

Reeves recently spoke at the Garden Buzz event earlier in the summer on this topic, and he has some great recommendations for selecting plants that can help bees in our area.

“Polonaise are very important, as we all know. That’s how we end up with fruits and vegetables. It takes an insect to pollinate the plant so we end up with that produce. So we want to provide lots of pollen and nectar for them. By providing this plant, you’re going to have more pollinators in the landscape for those things that we eat. So a very beneficial circle of life going from the flower, to the fruit, and then feeding that insect,” Reeves said.

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