Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

On Monday Tennessee had near record temperatures in the upper 60’s.On Tuesday it got warmer.According to the local television broadcast Nashville hit 71 degrees Fahrenheit which ties a record set in the 1800’s. The warmth has left us now but we took advantage of it while it was here! Here’s what we did:Monday Morning:I ran around the yard chasing my…

While I’m not officially wrapping up the Fall Color Project for this year the entries do seem to be slowing down! More and more leaves are finding their way to the ground, hopefully to become mulch or compost as nature intended! Today’s entry comes from the blog Garden Sense and shares with us the gorgeous colors that fall foliage brings…

Jump on over to Our Little Acre to see the fall colors! Not my acre, Kylee’s! She has viburnums, a gingko, sumacs, and many other plants that are showing some great fall foliage. The bald cypress and the beautyberry are two that I will have to add to our garden! Don’t forget to journey up to Kalamazoo, Michigan and the…

In the vegetable garden there is always a need for more space.  You never have enough.  The garden is constantly being filled with more plants than you really have room for and you have to find ways to organize it.  That’s why going vertical is a great option and the most classic way to go vertical is to use a…

Have you ever stood back and tried to observe your garden at a different angle? Maybe from up high on a slope? Or down low from the ground looking up at the flowers and trees? Sometimes it’s helpful to take a different perspective in order to plan out your garden better.  Here’s an example. I took this picture the other…

A character on one of my favorite shows “Heroes” calls himself a “master of space and time.” Hiro can stop time and let it resume whenever he wants. At one time he was even able to go forward and backward through time. Wouldn’t that be a cool power to have? But this post is not about superpowers, it’s about becoming…

Plant propagation can continue at almost every time of the year, the winter is no exception. This is especially true if you have a little space in your house to put your cuttings or can manage to manipulate them into interesting centerpieces! In this post you will see how to propagate Leyland cypress from cuttings. A Brief Bit About Leyland…

The truth is I never even considered remodeling our front porch for the Better Homes & Gardens 48 Hour Challenge but if I had considered it I did have some incentive not to. The two front runners in the challenge (Making it Lovely and This Young House) had some nifty ideas that they used in their porch remodels and some…

When sowing grass seed timing is everything. The right grass planted at the right time works wonders for a lawn, but the reverse can be true as well. Here in Tennessee we live in an a rather ambiguous area for growing grasses. The cool season grasses do great – that is until it gets hot and they turn all brown….

Recently I was given the opportunity to check out Nancy Ondra’s latest book called Five-Plant Gardens. Nancy Ondra writes the blog Hayefield and has written several other books including The Perennial Care Manual.  She is definitely what I consider and expert on perennial plants! This latest book isn’t about the care of the plants it’s about how to go about…

For those of us who garden in the summertime almost exclusively for the purpose of tasting that juicy red perfect tomato from the vegetable garden there’s a pretty good resource for you. It’s an Ebook called How to Grow Juicy Tasty Tomatoes written by Lucia Grimmer and Annette Welsford. Together the two tomato aficionados have assembled a handy resource for…

While the winter is still in gear I thought it might be helpful to begin reviewing some of the toughest plants I have grown over the years. I’ve grown a lot of them (and killed a few of them along the way). In my garden it has to be a tough plant to survive over the years. Today I’m going…

Yesterday I put together a small vegetable layout plan for my raised bed garden. It’s just one of many possibilities for companion planting and it only deals with a small number of plants. This plan features tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and marigolds in a 4 foot by 8 foot bed. All of these plants are listed in various companion planting guides…

It’s a little hard to see the changes that have happened over the last two years but I was looking through the pictures back in 2008 and was amazed on how much has changed. A maple tree in the back is twice as large now, the vegetable garden has been redesigned and now has plants around the outside of it,…

Every year in the garden is different. Sometimes it’s warmer than normal, sometimes colder. We may have more rain than usual or we may be in a drought. All of these factors affect how the plants grow, what comes up, and when they make their first appearance. One special event I like to notate each year on this garden blog…

Have you ever considered propagating arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis) from cuttings? It’s an easy and fun way to make more plants. Arborvitae can make a great privacy screen and hedge. Here you will find the steps I take to propagate arborvitae as well as a video to see it in action. How to Propagate Arborvitae from Cuttings The first step in…

When starting a new garden there are a million things you may be thinking about. While they may be important, or at least important to you, there are 3 key elements that are absolutely the most important things to consider when starting a new garden. I’m beginning the challenge to starting a brand new vegetable garden from scratch and these…

I’m always trying to start something new, usually I bite off more than I can chew but in this case I’m taking our back ornamental garden at a casual pace. In other words I’m not pushing myself to get it done but just doing what I can when I can.  It fits a general long range goal I have at…