5 questions on how to care for your garden

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - This crazy rollercoaster ride involving our weather is confusing our gardens. Things started blooming in February. Then we got a freeze. What's going on? And what should we do?
 
I know absolutely nothing about gardening. Fortunately, I know just the guy to help us. Jeff Skelton with Frank Otte Landscape & Design Group has 34 years of experience in residential and commercial design-build of outdoor environments. 

His favorite designs allow his clients to extend their indoor lifestyle to the outdoors by adding things like water features, fireplaces and quiet seating areas…sounds like heaven, doesn't it? He received his Bachelor of Landscape Architecture degree from Purdue University. 
 
Here are my five questions with Jeff Skelton:
 
1) Some of my flowers have bloomed and now the freeze has hit them hard. What should I do?
Mother Nature gave us an early spring and a lot of plants are budding or blooming. There is nothing to be done, with late blooming trees and shrubs we should still have some blooming.
 
2) What are some of your favorite plants for WAVE Country?
All my designs will have dogwoods, boxwoods, azaleas and hydrangeas. I use a lot of different plants in my designs, but those are my go to plants for Louisville gardens. 
 
3) When should I plan on putting new flowers/plants in my garden?
March and April is the busy time for gardeners and us in the landscape industry. It is the time of year for spring cleanup of the gardens. 
With the warm weather, many plants are pushing new growth. It is a great time to fertilizer and herbicide landscape beds and put down a fresh layer of mulch to control weeds. Holly tone fertilizer is a good for azaleas and other blooming plants.
 
4) What do you need to do after planting to ensure a healthy plant/flower?
We can plant year round in the Louisville, as long as you water the new plantings. Planting of annuals can be done in May, of course we seem to get ahead of our last frost date of May 12, due to Derby.
 
5) For people on a budget, what are some low-cost ways to add some bang?
Adding perennials to existing gardens, or starting to create a garden design in stages, can be done to meet budgets. Grouping of several sizes of containers full of annuals adds a lot of impact to an existing space.

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