Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

The weather this weekend was perfect. You can’t say that much here in July but it was just plain perfect. I hope you got to enjoy it as much as I did! I hope you enjoy a looking at a few pictures from the weekend! Salvia ‘Black and Blue’ and Zinnias Moonflower vine climbing the front porch.’Silver Mound’ Artemisia

Yesterday brought in that first official day of spring but it sure seems that spring beat the calendar to the punch.  The warm weather has brought many of our plants and trees much further along at this time of year than they should be.  It has me concerned.  I love the warm weather and the sights of blooming flowers but…

Thanksgiving is coming up next week and soon those turkeys will be filling our homes with the savory scents of a delicious dinner to be enjoyed among friends and family (and perhaps a nap to follow).  A lot of preparation goes into preparing that perfect Thanksgiving dinner and this being a gardening blog we aren’t talking turkey here but rather –…

I invited native plant expert and advocate Benjamin Vogt to write a guest post on attracting bees to the garden with native plants. I hope you enjoy it! -Dave This morning, once the sun hit the main garden, I took my video camera outside. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do, recording the most active part of the day in…

The first step to recovery is recognizing that you have a problem. We sure do, its our drainage! We sit below the road in our cul-de-sac and while drainage is generally good for our house, our driveway pools water near the garage. It’s mostly just an annoyance. When its rained heavily you have to step through a mud puddle to…

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…

Arrowwood viburnum (Viburnum dentatum) is one of my favorite shrubs (among too many to list) for good reason! It’s easy to grow, it’s dark glossy leaves change to various colors in red hues during the fall, and it provides nourishment in the form of berries for our local avian population. This variety is called ‘Morton’, a ‘Northern Burgundy®’ viburnum which…

There is a kind of magic in making cuttings. Watching something as simple and unremarkable as a little twig come to life with roots and branches all of its own can only be fascinating to the gardener. Several weeks ago I planted my Winter Garden with various plants which included three red twig dogwoods (Cornus stolonifera). These little dogwoods were…

Guess what?  June is here, we’re even a week into it, and I still haven’t gotten my vegetable garden completely ready!  It’s frustrating to say the least.  I’ve been so busy making plants for other people, selling at a local farmer’s market, and recovering from a nasty family sinus virus that I just haven’t been able to get out there…

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…

Over the weekend we visited my in-laws for Easter. While there I always explore the edges of the woods and sometimes deeper but I really didn’t have to journey far to find this trillium. It was among a grouping of several other trilliums on the edge of a cedar glade woods in their backyard. All the trilliums were the sessile…

Never say never right?  In my experience there are very few plants that are truly safe from deer.  This year I’ve had big time deer issues.  The extra tomato bed I planted was completely devoured by the two deer that are camping out in our backyard.  That isn’t shocking really.  I wasn’t able to put a good fence around any…

This weekend I picked up some cuttings of a red flowering crape myrtle to propagate. I took 6 inch hardwood cuttings that were just beginning to leaf out. Since I didn’t have time to treat them right away I left them in a jar of water overnight to stay moist and treated them with rooting hormone the next day. For…

I hope you’ll forgive this little divergence from the garden talk to brag on my oldest little girl. She just turned 4 today and here’s how we spent our time after dinner: Groovy Baby! And now for the ice cream shots! Yum!

Some plants are determined. Something in their genetic make-up decided long ago that nothing would get them down and nothing ever does. Take this river birch (Betula nigra) for instance. I received it from the Arbor Day Foundation but this isn’t one of the 10 “free” trees I received with my donation. I actually purchased this one. It was one…

While the weather outside resembles that of the arctic I spent a few minutes starting Japanese maple seeds. I had two varieties of tree that I saved seed from this fall, ‘Sango Kaku’ and ‘Bloodgood’ (Acer palmatum). Both types of Japanese maples are fairly common and can make good root stock for other, more unique Japanese maple varieties. One of…

Disclaimer: The following post is a sponsored review of the Troy-Bilt TB490 XP ™ 4×4 Self-Propelled mower. All opinions are solely the opinion of the author who in exchange for goods and compensation was asked to do this review. In my last post I told you a little bit about my trip to Savannah, Georgia with the Troy-Bilt Brand Ambassadors….

This week my daughter and I put together a couple more raised beds in the garden. They aren’t exactly what I planned to do in the vegetable garden layout that I made a couple months ago but the addition of the extra beds has definitely improved over the layout I had last year, at least in terms of space. They…