Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

You can feel it in the air can’t you? The coolness of an approaching autumn. The each passing day is getting noticeably shorter. We’re beginning that transitional period from the hot summer growing season to the fall growing season and that can mean a lot of changes in the garden. The vegetable garden may still be going full speed ahead…

In my last post I mentioned 11 Things to Think About When Designing Your Raised Bed Vegetable Garden.  Here are a few more ideas suggested by commenters! Think about a fence (From Tina).  Whether for aesthetics or for function fences are good for the garden. Different fences can solve different issues.  A simple wire fence may keep out the smaller…

Being mid-November there isn’t much to show for blooms. We’ve had several light frosts and a couple hard freezes which for the most part silences the perennials and annuals that worked so hard for us during the growing season. But there is always something worth looking at in the garden! Like these pansies in the front garden. The salvia by…

The vegetable garden is growing “like a weed”, in fact its growing a few of them too! I’m really pleased with the progress of most of the garden so far. There are a couple beds that need some attention but I have almost all the beds mulched with a hardwood mulch to keep most of the weeds at bay and…

Today is the day. The day when the challenge is evaluated by friends, family, and fellow bloggers through online voting at BHG.com and I need your help to win. The projects have been done and everyone has done a fantastic job by bringing us slick porch remodels, an elegant potting bench, a cool barbecue cart, and my personal favorite: a…

Up in Michigan Joey has posted some really cool collages for the Fall Color Project. The colors from the maples and other trees around her town couldn’t have been painted more vividly with any paintbrush. It’s a palette of autumn color that awaits you at The Village Voice! The colors have officially reached their peak here in Tennessee. Over at…

Today I put the final touches on the birdbath garden for the 2008 gardening season. It’s come a long way since it’s inception last fall. In the beginning it was merely a birdbath with a couple plants next to it. A few irises, two coneflowers (‘Sunset’), and a butterfly bush made up the whole garden. Later I added some discount…

Over the years I have grown many plants. I have a bit of a collectors attitude toward my garden and pick out unique plants as much as possible. Some of those plants haven’t done well for me, but other plants have simply been amazing. I thought it would be a good idea to go back and look at some of…

It’s amazing when you go back and think about time and how quickly it flies by. Earlier we were listening to the “90’s” station on the cable TV music station and I realized that even though the 90’s didn’t seem that long ago 1996 was actually 14 years ago! Yep time flies fast just like 3 years of writing this…

The cold temps are keeping you indoors and you are going stir crazy.  You need to do something in the garden, with the garden, or for the garden and the seed catalogs showing up in your mailbox just aren’t good enough to get your gardening fix.  Then do this – plant an indoor garden!  Recently I put together a small…

For many years now viburnums have been one of my favorite shrubs in my garden. For the most part viburnums grow without issue, add beauty to the landscape, and provide sustainable for wildlife. What strikes me as confusing is why they aren’t more popular in the home garden? When in bloom viburnum flowers rival hydrangeas for impact. The rest of…

While searching for a picture to confirm the identity of my mysterious sedum I found a great wildflower website written by another Tennessean! It’s called East Tennessee Wildflowers. The site is full of pictures and information and even has lesson plans for teachers who want to add a wildflower element to their classrooms. Kris, the author and photographer, is a…

Things are growing very nicely in the vegetable garden. The tomatoes (which are our favorite crop no matter what else we try) are growing like crazy, the zucchini has almost produced it’s first zucchini, and the cabbage are …well…you’ll see… Here are two of my raised beds full of tomatoes. The bed on the left contains mostly Roma tomatoes while…

A line of storms came through last night dropping the temperature nearly 20 degrees in an hour. Strong rain and wind blew all over Tennessee. Here in our yard we received about an inch of rain throughout the day. Fortunately our damage was minimal. Probably the worst thing affected was our sleep. The neighbor’s fence gate blew open and their…

As you might guess from the title I paid a visit yesterday to a fellow garden blogger’s garden to visit none other than Clay and Limestone’s Gail.  She invited me up to collect a tree for our garden that she didn’t have a home for after her patio area remodel.  The tree was a serviceberry.  A great tree to add…

This past Sunday I asked a for some inspiration on perennials for fall plantings. Here is a summary of what people suggested. I’ve simplified this post to show only the specific perennials themselves but those who commented offered some great ideas for where to use these perennials and some other options like trees and shrubs so please go back and…

In 2007 I started this blog on gardening.  I didn’t know where I was going with it, or what I was really doing to begin with, but I knew I wanted to talk more about gardening with other gardeners.  I was constantly talking about gardening and garden ideas with my family, and I’m sure they got tired of my incessant…

For while I thought the deer were gone.  Then this spring we saw the telltale signs of the whitetail deer.  The hoof prints, the nibbles and the um…other signs. Then came the sightings. A single doe came strolling through the backyard taking nibbles of various plants.  Fortunately most of the plants in our garden are deer resistant so the deer…