Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

The colors are out and some trees are spectacular! There are all sorts of colorful trees for the fall that just can’t be beat. The maples are some of my favorites. Here are some suggestions for trees with great fall color:Maples: Sugar Maple (Acer Saccharum): beautiful yellow orange foliageRed Maple (Acer rubrum) red foliage (of course)Japanese Maples (Acer Palmatum).Sweet Gum…

This time of year when the weather is inhospitable I take a look back through the pictures I’ve taken and informally review the previous year. That’s one great advantage when you blog, you have a record of most things and photographs of almost everything else! Here’s a picture from September just outside our vegetable garden. In the fuzzy foreground is…

Coming up on April 25, 2008 is Arbor Day. It’s a day to celebrate a unique feature of our planet the trees. The trees are so important to us. They serve as the planet’s lungs filtering the air we breathe, they provide us fruit and nuts to eat, paper to read and write with, drugs like aspirin and shade to…

Rather than talk about useless resolutions for 2009 I thought I would discuss my project plans for the garden. I do have one goal that encompasses all things gardening and in my life that could be considered a resolution: to do all things better than I did the last time. That one statement covers pretty much any potential resolution in…

In order to raise worms for worm composting (vermicomposting) you have to have a place to put the worms and the kitchen scraps. There are all kinds of composting bins that can be effective but they all work on the same idea. A box houses the worms, kitchen scraps, and bedding. As the worms eat they make their way through…

Snow is falling in the northern parts of our country as we are experiencing record 75 degree temperatures in Middle Tennessee in December! The forecast goes down from here with even a possibility of snow in the future for the weekend. Strange weather! Mid 50’s would not be surprising for this time of year but mid 70’s? I guess it’s…

It’s not often that I am so impressed by a nursery that I feel compelled to write about them.  So many nurseries just do things the same way, the established way.  I know it works well but when a nursery steps it up a notch it REALLY works. Growild Nursery in Fairview, Tennessee (7190 Hill Hughes Rd, Fairview, TN 37062) to…

Recently you may have noticed an unusual lack of posts, there’s a good reason for it! We’ve been a little busy around here since last Thursday when we welcomed Samuel David to the world! He was 7 lbs. and 10 oz. and 20 inches. Sam also arrived in record time as labor was under 1 hour and 30 minutes! Mommy…

The other day I came up with an idea for a rustic planter. I had this piece of a pallet left over from my old potting bench that I didn’t have any particular use for. The old pallet itself was the table potion of my previous potting bench and I cut off a piece of the pallet to make the…

There are many choice of trees to plant and reasons why you might want to plant them. In this post I want to highlight a few ornamental trees that might be worth planting in your landscape. Ornamental trees really could be any kind of tree but typically have great flowers or special and interesting foliage. They usually have more than…

Maintenance-Free Gardens: Everything You Need to Know A flower garden in full bloom is every gardener’s masterpiece. And like most great masterpieces, each brush stroke is calculated, the color palette chosen in advance, and the overall composition exists in the artist’s mind well before touching brush to canvas, or in this case, trowel to soil. Although we all appreciate the…

I was looking back at photographs of the past year in the garden and found these shots of the front sidewalk garden. When the weather is cold and rainy outside it’s nice to look back sometimes and see how things were where they were in bloom. The sidewalk skirts the garage portion of our house and takes you up to…

When the flowers are pretty much gone it’s time to harvest the result: seeds! Saving seeds is a great way to reduce your plant budget for next year, especially when the plants you save seed from are known for easy germination. Recently I collect some poppy seed from our red poppies in the self-sowing garden. Some of the seeds I’ll…

Hostas are one of my favorite garden plants so it stands to reason that I like to propagate more! The propagation of hostas is done primarily through division which is a very simple process. Like any process there are several methods that will work to propagate and divide hostas. The Best Time to Divide Hostas The best time to divide…

Unfortunately I’m a day late on Bloom Day but I’m definitely not a bloom short! Yesterday I posted the Fall Color Project Post for the week. Be sure to take plenty of photos for your Fall Color Project 2010 Post! On with the blooms! Yellow Pansies – still need planted… Pink annual Salvia coccinnea Purple Coneflowers – a little washed…

You know the saying “If you don’t like the weather in {Insert your state here}, just wait a few minutes!” In the last two days, and possibly much of January, truer words could not be said about the weather here in Tennessee. Gray skies have been intermittent with occasional sun. The temperatures have been warm, rainy, and much more like…

It is highly possible that post might not have happened. I’m glad it did since I’ve seen some great November colors in the blog posts listed below. Due to a computer bug and other issues this week it’s been very hard to get anything written. Whoever had the bright idea to create Trojan viruses on computers needs to be locked…

I certainly enjoy my coffee every morning (in fact you don’t want me not to!) but that’s not even close to what is inside these two cups. Can you guess to what purpose I’m reusing these two former fast food containers for? It’s not a hard guess and I suspect you already know exactly what I’m doing with them. Rather…