Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

I’m always interested in trying to make new plants and recently I decided to give my Asclepias incarnata a try.  Asclepias or butterfly weed make great host plants for butterfly larvae.   I’ve always assumed that asclepias needed to be grown from seed or from root cuttings but as it turns out they will root easily from stem tip cuttings.  I…

To grow a healthy plant healthy growing conditions are important. Sometimes all a plant needs is watering at the appropriate times. Often, you have to give the plant more and that is where fertilizers can be useful. Fertilizers provide extra nutrients that may not be readily available in the soil. There are many types of fertilizers available for gardeners to…

One of the reasons I enjoy gardening so much is the ability to experience nature. Today I was treated to a butterfly I’ve never noticed before. What caught my attention was the blue coloration on its wings but otherwise it looked very similar to a tiger swallowtail. It also had red markings on the underside of the wings and on…

My recent fascination with the snowy owl visiting our town isn’t something new, I’ve always been interested in birds and wildlife. Gardening and nature to me are so closely woven together in the tapestry of life that you don’t get one without the other, and if you do you’re doing something wrong. Nature in all it’s glory ultimately controls what…

This time of year there usually isn’t much to see in the garden. Lately we’ve been pounded with rain shower after rain shower. We’ve had so much rain that the Duck River south of us in Columbia is about to crest at 45 ft. which is more than it did in the historic floods we had in 2010. There’s not…

The weather in Tennessee is extremely volatile this time of year.  One day it could be in the 70’s (as it was today) and then the next day it could be a 40 degree high (as it is predicted for tomorrow!) This makes it a challenge to garden in the spring time.  There are a few things you can do…

Most people got it right! The correct answer was the hemlock. The Canadian Hemlock or Tsuga canadesis is a great plant to use as an evergreen screen or a specimen tree. It has the potential to grow between 40-70 feet tall and could spread up between 25-35 feet in diameter. Its foliage is soft and feathery unlike many other evergreen…

The other day I wrote a post about protecting your plants from a freeze. I followed what I preached and came through with no frost damage on my covered plants. I think Tennessee is now officially in the clear! I came away with these interesting shots. A new kind of pot garden?

Who would have thought? A daffodil (Narcissus) blooming in mid-February! The little sprouts are coming up all over but this one and a couple others like it have decided they like the weather. It could be that they are in a slightly warmer micro-climate near concrete but mostly it’s because of the extremely unseasonably warm weather we’ve been enjoying. It’s…

Cover crops are an excellent way to improve the soil without adding chemical fertilizers – and they look great too! Today while driving home from a talk I gave on plant propagation I drove down an old country road and took a few pictures of the red clover. Most likely the farmer is using the clover to enrich the soil…

This week my daughter and I put together a couple more raised beds in the garden. They aren’t exactly what I planned to do in the vegetable garden layout that I made a couple months ago but the addition of the extra beds has definitely improved over the layout I had last year, at least in terms of space. They…

This weekend found me still digging the greenhouse foundation out. Digging out a 10’x16′ area by yourself takes some time, especially when it rains more often than not. But in gardening, as in life, you take what comes and do the best you can with what you have. In three digging sessions I excavated three 4’x8′ areas to eventually remove…

Who is this hiding among the Bradford Pear Blossoms?I didn’t notice the lady beetle before I took the picture. It was only after I was perusing pictures from today’s beautiful weather that I noticed the little orange and black insect hiding among the blossoms.

I’ve been riding a gardening high since everything seemed to be going so well. The summer squash has been putting out squash prolifically and everyday there have been more cucumbers to pick. Things are changing. Now there are some pesky pests who are honing in on my vegetables. The squash vine borer and the cucumber beetle are the villains.These two…

Good morning gardeners! I wanted to write a post to update you on a few events going on in my life. I don’t write much personal information on this blog. I always like to keep my writing very close to gardening, but I felt it was time to share an update with you. For the last 8 years I have…

We had a short reprieve from the cold winter temperatures we’ve been having.  It reached nearly 70 degrees  and we actually saw the sun for the first time in days. It felt good to be outside this afternoon tending to some minor garden chores. My first task was to pot up some more Purple leaf plums (Prunus cerasifera) that had…

Last year I told you about the Japanese maples that grew naturally from underneath a tree at my parent’s house. I over wintered young trees in my garden shed (see the April Video update) and have been taking care of them here in our garden. The other day I transferred the Japanese maple seedlings from the shed because it was…

Every year I try something new in the vegetable garden. When I was selecting seeds back in the dormant season I ran across this small melon called ‘Tigger’.  Of course as a parent with three children anything with the name ‘Tigger’ catches my attention. The ‘Tigger’ melon was described in the Baker Creek catalog as “vibrant yellow with brilliant fire-red,…