2005 - 2025
Celebrating 20 years in Blount County, Teaching, Connecting & Growing!
Welcome to the UT Extension Office's Front Yard
Thoughtful landscaping is a wonderful way to welcome visitors to a home or business. With proper planning, gardens can have year-round interest as well as a personality. Key is understanding the light and water requirements for the area as well as for the desired plantings. Also important is considering the mature size of everything to be planted to ensure that the bed will look beautiful for years to come. Planting annuals for a few years while trees and shrubs grow will give a bed a full look without creating long-term overcrowding.
The UT Extension Office's "front yard" contains several highlight beds containing a mix of native plantings and unique specimen plantings. Evergreen specimens Fernspray Gold Hinoki Cypress, Harvard Gold Cypress, and Sharon's Gold Cypress were planted. These evergreens were chosen because of unique colorings and distinctive foliage patterns. A Lindsey's Skyward Bald Cypress adorns the bed. This variety has several features of the grandiose and more commonly known Bald Cypress, but on a smaller growth scale. The Lacebark Elm chosen is an elm variety that has beautiful multicolored exfoliating bark which provides remarkable winter interest. Another outstanding feature is the Slender Silhouette Sweetgum. This tree is tall and slender, as its name implies, and it produces minimal, if any, of the spiky seedpods known to the common Sweetgum varieties. It also offers spectacular fall color.
An Asian (Thailand) elephant ear variety from Jason Reeves (UT Jackson) was also added to the beds in 2025. This variety is massive and the leaves can reach the size of an adult human. The elephant ears grew fabulously! The tubers were dug up and overwintered in a garage, because of uncertainty about this variety's ability to survive our East Tennessee winter. Replanted in the Spring of 2026, the elephant ears were again amazing throughout the summer in the full sun. This winter the tubers will be kept in the ground with a thick covering of mulch to protect them. Hopefully, they will return. Reblooming azaleas, iris, daylilies, and a few spring blooming bulbs fill out the dogwood beds.
The state of Tennessee shaped garden bed is a playful undertaking of orange and white varieties ranging from spring bulbs to summer blooming annuals. In 2026, the BCMG participated in a trial garden program in conjunction with UT extension and Dr. Natalie Bumgarner. The trial varieties planted are nicknamed the "All Vol Cutting Garden", featuring Benary Giant Orange Zinnias, and Benary Giant White Zinnias, in addition to Afternoon White Cosmos. The trial garden was planted June 4, 2026, and fertilizer was applied to the bed. The standardized the planting layout was created using a template with the plant spacings designated by the indicated UT guidelines. Throughout the growing season water was regulated and data was collected at recomended intervals. Master Gardeners in six counties participated in the trials; data will be submitted for a comparative analysis in late fall.
Lessons Learned Planting Dogwood Trees
Summers in East Tennessee are sunny and warm. Some may say hot. Making sure that the sun/shade requirements of the plants and trees chosen matches the area in which they will be planted is essential for a happy landscape and landscaper. Proper placement can determine whether a plant or tree dies, survives, or thrives. The BCMGs have a cautionary tale to tell.
In early 2024, in the front of the UT Extension Office building, the Master Gardeners planted two new garden beds to include 13 dogwood trees that had been requested for the space. Knowing that the trees would be planted in full sun, rather than as an understory tree that would receive more shade, the selected dogwood varieties were those developed in and for the Southeast region: Cherokee Brave, Cherokee Princess, Cherokee Super Princess, and Appalachian Snow.
So much has been learned - the hard way - trying to maintain the beautiful dogwood trees in an environment that is in the sun from dawn to dusk. Care for trees in during the first year is critical for establishment, so the dogwoods received careful and often daily watering and regular care. Unfortunately, four dogwood trees died and were replaced in Spring, 2025. Even after two and one half years, the trees still require steady weekly watering as well as staking and trimming. One tree split 18 months after planting and required stabilization and grafting; so far it has survived. The two dogwood trees that were planted on the east side of the building have performed superbly. These trees are protected by the building and are not in full sun throughout the day. While the dogwood trees have survived, they have been slow to progress.
The demonstration gardens at the UT Extension Office very much showcase how to work with the landscape environment available. Our beloved dogwoods in the sunny beds demonstrate how difficult it is to have a tree (or plant) thrive in the wrong growing conditions. Even survival can be a challenge. Our dogwood trees still struggle in a sunny, slope garden. Grow a dogwood as an understory tree that receives fewer hours of full sun, and it will thrive with less intense effort during establishment and maintenance thereafter.
UT Extension Office Demonstration Projects
2020 - Rain Garden and demonstration installed by BCSWCD with help from BC Master Gardeners. Open to the public to view the different stages from planting to maintenance.
- 2022 - BCMG Plant Sale - held for the 1st time at the BC Ext Office grounds.
- 2022 - Front Entrance & Flagpole "FIREWISE" demonstration garden. This demonstration landscape received a Search for Excellence Award at the 2023 International Master Gardener Conference.
- 2023 - Slope gardening demonstration garden.
- 2024 - Raised Beds installed Blount County Recycling Center.
- 2025 - Extension Office demonstration gardens expanded to include entryway gardens and a pocket pollinator garden at the mailboxes.
- More to come on the exciting future of the Ext Office Demonstration Gardens, etc.
COME VISIT THE UT EXTENSION OFFICE DEMONSTRATION GARDENS AT:
1219 McArthur Road, Maryville, TN 37804