Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Pretty soon we’ll be relocating to our new home. Our family is very excited about this but it also means starting the garden all over again. Everything including raised beds, sheds, and arbors will have to be rebuilt. While this is a tremendous amount of work I think it’s a great opportunity to start again and redevelop our garden with…

Do you say “Do you feel lucky, punk?” when you stare down weeds while wielding a bottle of herbicide? Do you cringe when you hear crabgrass? Then don’t forget that this coming Wednesday July 29th is Worst Weed Wednesday where you get to rant all you want about the worst possible garden invaders to your yard! For more details check…

Planting time is here, but before you plant there are a few things you should do to prepare your garden beds.  Here are a few things you should do to get the soil prepared before planting out your garden. Weed – This one is pretty obvious but it has to be done!  Weeding the garden removes competition for valuable nutrients,…

Well you just know it had to happen. Another gardening season and another lawnmower incident. At least this time it didn’t involve flames! And I have to admit I am very thankful to have a nandina! How does a nandina fit in with the story? Let me recount the tale for you as I experienced it. It was a beautiful…

This week we’ve gotten some serious work done on the patio area but there is quite a lot still to do; isn’t there always? Thursday I brought a truckload of sand to cover the gravel. The sand helps when setting the stones in place by creating a soft layer that is easily manipulated for leveling the stones.Here is how it…

Layering is a fantastic way to make more free plants with very little risk. Propagating a plant through layering usually involves pinning down a branch to make contact with the soil so that the branch can begin forming roots.  I’ve used layering to propagate more difficult to root plants like oak leaf hydrangeas.   Below you will find a short…

There are still fall colors beckoning gardeners in Illinois to pull out their cameras! Rose of the blog Prairie Rose found quite a few colorful trees in her neck of the woods. Crabapples bearing fruit, ashes, maples and a hackberry all join in the fall fray. One very interesting thing among the many photos to look at is the flowering…

Oak leaf hydrangeas are an awesome landscape shrub to add to the garden. They get big and need room and enjoy part shade/part sun locations but if you have the right spot for one by all means add one! I’m always trying to propagate a few more but they tend to be rather tricky to propagate from cuttings. Layering is…

I just posted on the greenhouse shed page with a new report on the siding installation. The garden shed is shaping up! Adding the siding really changes the look for the better – much closer to what I’ve envisioned. There’s always more to do but progress is being made! I forgot to mention in the post but I also installed…

Recently I was sent three products to take a look at that could be used in the garden world fro various functions. Fortepromo.com specializes in customizing various products for companies and groups to make unique individual promotional products. The three items they sent me to look at were a tape measure, a water bottle, and a garden bag that is…

One of my favorite flowers to enjoy each year is coreopsis! It has an unfortunate nickname that may make you wary, but just because coreopsis is also called tickseed does not mean it will bring ticks! More on that later, but for now here is why coreopsis should be a plant in your garden. Why Coreopsis Is Great in the…

This year’s wacky weather has given way to quite a lot of speculation about when the actual peak time for the leaves is. I’ve noticed that this year hasn’t really had a peak color moment. The normal sequential leaf change has been extremely erratic and some plants still haven’t begun to change while others no longer even have leaves. Fortunately…

Despite recent events at the White House the security of my greenhouse shed just won’t ever be as good as that of the Secret service. Since it is also a shed and will be housing my lawnmowers, weedeater, various garden tools, hoses, and all the plants I hope to propagate I need something to keep people out. Tools don’t walk…

Lately the birds have been returning to the feeders. These goldfinches (Carduelis tristis) all dressed in their winter coats after molting are partaking of a feast of niger seed, which is excellent for attracting finches.  Like all birds they seem to prefer the seed d’jour. Afterall who doesn’t like the fresh stuff?  Thistle, coreopsis, sunflower, service berry, birch, and alder…

 Hi there!  I’m taking over dad’s blog today and giving you a bit of a tour of the garden. Or at least of the things I like about the garden! I’m not quite sure what he’s trying to do out there.  He digs a lot, sticks funny plants in the ground, and dumps water out everywhere.  But I get to…

Just one really neat sight I saw this weekend was the monarch sipping nectar from the milkweed (Asclepias syriaca). Milkweed is the host plant for the monarch butterflies which serves a very important role in the life of the fluttering favorites of backyard butterflies. Milkweed contains a chemical called glycosides which get consumed by the monarch caterpillars (see more here…

This time of year more than any other when the cold weather is still stuck upon us we look for any signs of spring. We scour the garden for any hints of warmer weather that will hopefully be on its way soon. We have it lucky right now here in Tennessee. While the snows are burying parts of our country…

This spring on one corner of my house I installed a shade garden. I removed the old $30 builder special privet bush and put an oak leaf hydrangea in its place. I added astilbe, ferns, hostas, heucheras, and heucherellas. We traded at a plant swap for some variegated Soloman’s seal and added annuals like caladiums, coleus, and impatiens. What I…