Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Over Thanksgiving we spent some time in Mt. Juliet at my in-laws home. I always enjoy traipsing around the woods near their house just to explore. I did that often as a kid at my grandfather’s house and I’ve always been fond of spending time in the great outdoors. Often I come home with rocks for my garden borders but…

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…

Sometimes there comes along a plant that is just a gardener’s dream. Beautiful during the growing season, native, great for pollinators, great for birds, useful in the landscape, and overall easy to care for. I’ve got you hooked already don’t I? This plant would be a member of one of my favorite groups of plants: the viburnums. Viburnum dentatum aka…

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…

The month of June brings many new blooms to the garden. Summer blooming perennials are filling the garden with color. Everywhere you look plants are flowering. Here are a few perennial photos of what is blooming in the garden right now! Beautyberry BushThe beautyberry bush is well known for it’s berries but those berries have to start somewhere. This beautyberry…

I have always loved maples. When I was a kid I’d climb the maples at my grandfather’s house in Pennsylvania and watch them as they changed colors in the fall. The fall brilliance of a maple is something to be cherished and remembered. It is one of the greatest fall trees and Kim over in Maryland has two wonderful blazing…

George in Vermont (The Vermont Gardener and Vermont Gardens) has posted some wonderful colors of the Vermont wilderness. Filled with maples, the hills appear to be on fire with the autumn foliage turning. With photos of places like Marshfield Pond and Osmore Pond you start to think thoughts of camping and sitting by a fireside on a cool autumn day…

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…

If you live in an area with plenty of trees you are blessed with adequate building materials for trellises and posts. They may be rustic in appearance but they can function pretty good.  Today I’ll show you my new trellis for my sugar snap peas.  It’s made from 5 pieces of dead wood that fell from our tulip poplar tree. …

I’m always looking for new plants to experiment on to see if I can get them to root.  Yesterday I took some cuttings from a grape vine at my mom’s house.  Grape vines are pretty popular with home gardeners who want to grow their own food in the backyard so I thought I’d give them a try.  I haven’t successfully…

Here’s the second second of my “waiting on spring” posts called The Garden: Then and Now. The first one featured the Deck Garden, this one is all about the Birdbath Garden. The birdbath garden originated with a little copper birdbath we were given years ago. It was designed to hook onto a deck railing on the back porch but we…

First of all let me apologize, I intended to announce the winner of the grill yesterday however I was out battening down the hatches in preparation for storms of epic proportions.  Fortunately the storms did not manifest to the extent our local forecasters predicted.  That is just fine by me! Our thoughts and prayers are with those in Arkansas and…

On Wednesday (July 29th, 2009) I’ll be hosting Worst Weed Wednesday and I’d like to invite all my fellow blogging friends to participate! All you have to do is pick out (or pick on) your least favorite garden invader in a post on your blog. It could be any plant you consider to be a weed, after all a weed…

I have been known to surf through the local big box home improvement store garden center for discount plants. I found all sorts of mums earlier in the fall for $0.50 each. All they needed was a little trimming and dead heading and they were good as new.I’ve found Viburnums and Russian Sage this way also!Today I found a 10-12…

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…

Tonight the weather people are expecting our first hard freeze in Tennessee. It will then officially end the growing season! This is not entirely true though. The plants are still growing roots. Plants planted now will grow strong root systems though the winter and should have great foliar growth in the spring. Here are some tips on what to do…

Today I thought I would show you the before and after since yesterday I teased you on the details of the front porch garden remodel. It’s current state is still classified in the unfinished category but it is well on its way to becoming a welcoming front porch garden. First let me show you the before pictures: The crabapple is…

Fortunately I’m not one to be squeamish with the natural side of the garden. The wasps usually don’t bother me, nor do the spiders, and neither do the snakes. I know many people can’t even stand the sight of snakes whether they are dangerous or not. It’s probably the fear that they could be poisonous that scares people. There’s an…