Container Gardener, Jenny

Jenny is a self-labeled container gardener who loves to switch up her plant mix with every season to create a whole new scene and reason to smile. She and her husband, Kyle, built their first home just a few years ago, after having lived in a high-rise apartment building for most of their relationship. They chose their lot based on a single sunflower that was growing there, trusting it to be a good sign. With a blank yard slate came a tremendous new gardening lifestyle for both of them, one that includes a beautiful multi-tiered deck sprinkled with annual containers and lined by a bed of Knock Out® shrub roses. The envy-worthy highlight? A custom-made, dog bone-shaped pool for their beloved Goldendoodle, Moose.

For Jenny, gardening started simply, just wanting to create a nice space around the new home. Now, it has morphed into a fun learning process. Jenny actually keeps her own handmade “map” of which plants and flowers work well in different sections of the yard. And every year, she adds something to the map. Next up for 2022, Jenny aims to create more of a pollinator space with her plant selection, understanding the importance of supporting pollinators like butterflies and bees. As for Kyle, who maintained a small vegetable garden while in college 10+ years ago, he’s planning to dig a 12’ x 12’ vegetable garden this spring for growing tomatoes, peppers, and other garden variety salad fixings, and admits he finds the work of gardening to be calming.

When it comes to container gardening, Jenny credits her success to planting in containers that feature built-in water reservoirs, which helps reduce the labor of watering and worries about over/under watering. She also uses Osmocote® as her go-to plant food for all her annuals, and expresses how her hanging baskets and containers grow to about 6x the original size over the course of the growing season. For trees, Jenny & Kyle believe Jobe’s® tree spikes have kept their young trees healthy and strong.