News Releases

Birdhouses adorn a discarded satellite dish and a long-handled dipper gourd vine trails up and across a display of flying bicycles at the UT West Tennessee Research and Education Center in Jackson. The unique garden art was featured at the center's recent Summer Celebration and will remain on display throughout the 2007 growing season. Download this image

(JACKSON, Tenn.) — A record crowd of more than 2,800 lawn and gardening enthusiasts attended the University of Tennessee's annual Summer Celebration Thursday July 12.

Annual and perennial vines were the featured plants, and visitors to the UT West Tennessee Research and Education Center found a wide variety of vines supported by what some would call recycled junk. Gardens curator Jason Reeves was responsible for the creative displays, which included equipment gears, old bicycles, and discarded barbed wire among the junkyard-inspired art.

As part of the Summer Celebration, subject-matter experts from UT and area nurseries were on hand to offer free advice on everything gardening related, from maintaining your roses and lawn grasses to identifying which pest is plaguing your vegetables.

Jason Reeves, curator of the UT Gardens at the West Tennessee Research and Education Center in Jackson, talks to Summer Celebration visitors about designing gardens with interesting structures and vines, like this snail vine trellising up a collection of gears. The gardens and art remain open and on display from 8:00 a.m. until dusk, seven days a week, throughout the growing season. Download this image

A wagon tour also acquainted visitors with the agricultural research ongoing at the facility and hinted at some of the center’s 100-year history. The facility will officially celebrate its centennial later this year. The center is one of ten agricultural and natural resource research facilities in UT's statewide Agricultural Experiment Station system.

Dr. Bob Hayes, center director, was thrilled with the turnout. "We always have a great crowd, but this year the community participation was phenomenal," he said. The director is looking forward to next year, when he hopes the crowd will top 3,000.

For those who may have missed this year’s Summer Celebration, the gardens at the West Tennessee Research and Education Center are open to the public daily from 8:00 a.m. until dusk. Reeves plans to leave the junkyard art on display throughout the 2007 growing season.

Additional UT field days and cultural events are planned in West Tennessee later this year, including a Heritage Festival at Ames Plantation in Grand Junction on October 13, and a Fall Folklore Jamboree featuring traditional skills at the West Tennessee Agricultural Museum in Milan on October 20. For more information visit the web site: http://agriculture.tennessee.edu/news/FieldDays/

For more information about the West Tennessee Research and Education Center visit the Web site http://westtennessee.tennessee.edu/

###

Contacts:

Dr. Robert Hayes, director, West Tennessee Research and Education Center, (731) 424-1643
Patricia McDaniels, UTIA Marketing and Communications Services, (865) 974-7141