Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Nashville Lawn and Garden Show Welcomes Brie Arthur as Featured Speaker Author of The Foodscape Revolution Will Speak on March 3 & 4 Nashville, TN – The 2018 Nashville Lawn and Garden Show welcomes nationally recognized author, PBS correspondent and gardening expert Brie Arthur as its featured speaker. This year’s Show is March 1-4 at The Fairgrounds Nashville. Arthur will…

Today I picked up nearly 300 bricks for use in the greenhouse floor. Bricks are a good choice for flooring since they are solid yet can allow water to flow through the cracks. They will also help to absorb heat during the day and release it at night when the temperatures are cooler which is just what you want in…

One of the most interesting things about the fall season is the ability to observe the transformation from lush flowers and foliage to seed heads and dried leaves that flutter on the wind. It’s the beginning and the end of two gardening seasons for many plants. The seeds are the bridge that will reach across the gap and bring us…

It isn’t often I have a product to test in my garden where I actually say “Holy crap, this is awesome!” when no one else is around. Really. Products that good are really hard to come by because I’m fairly picky. A few weeks ago I was sent two items from Fiskars to try out. For disclaimer purposes I was…

One of the great flowering summer trees of the south is the crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica). They typically grow well in zones 6-9 (Tennessee generally falls in the zone 6 area with a few areas in the 7). One of the growing traits of a crape myrtle that makes them good for propagating by cuttings is their ability to sucker….

This week is the Nashville Lawn and Garden Show!  For those of us here in TN this is a great opportunity to go out and take care of that gardening fix after a long cold winter.  There are always some interesting ideas to be found in the displays so make sure you bring a camera!  Here are some photos from…

Why should you consider raised bed gardening for your vegetables? It’s a good question. The alternative is to put the garden in the ground which people have done for centuries with success. Why change a good thing? For the small home garden raised beds are a much better option. Below you will find some very good benefits of gardening in…

Herb Garden Layout I’ve been debating on exactly what kind of herb garden to implement and after making up some rough sketches of various ideas on paper I decided to throw this basic design together. It has a somewhat formal look yet should be relatively easy to maintain. I was considering trying to do a knot herb garden but that…

Three years ago I redid a corner spot along our house and turned it into a shade garden. Two plants were present when I started to install the shade garden: a privet (ligustrum) and a cedar tree. I removed the privet mostly because I didn’t like it and removed the cedar due to a bagworm infestation I had early last…

The forecast is warming up and it’s about time! The cold days might be past us and full time gardening could be about to begin. At least it will for me this weekend as I intend to get more than a few chores done, including some work on my greenhouse-shed, some pine-needle spreading, planting of more cool season vegetables, and…

Here is a collection of vegetable gardening posts that I’ve written over the last few years. Some are gardening designs and others are more general but in either case hopefully they will be of some use to you! Garden Layouts and Designs The garden layouts and designs section contains a group of posts about designing a raised bed vegetable garden. …

It’s May, and the last thing I thought I’d be writing about is a frost in May (Our last Frost date is usually mid April).  The weather service hasn’t put out a frost warning that I know of but with temperatures predicted to be 39 degrees tonight I know my garden is in danger. Our property sits down in a…

It’s that time of year where the daylilies are becoming the showoffs of the garden. Daylilies (Hemerocallis) area very common collectable perennial here in the south. They propagate very easily through division and are a prime starter plant for people interested in learning how to hybridize plants. Here’s a look at a little of what is blooming in our garden…

This afternoon the temperatures dropped enough for work outside to become “feasible.” Not ideal in any sense of the word simply feasible. Add to that this cough, sinus drainage, and a mild case of pink eye and you would think I would just stay indoors and rest. Not so for this dedicated (or dumb) gardener! My oldest daughter accompanied me…

For years now I have complained about our Bradford Pear Trees. In my mind they are one of the most problematic trees ever planted in the landscape. I despise Bradford Pear trees. There are so many reasons why Bradford pear trees are terrible for planting that I constantly wonder WHY were these things ever released to the public for purchase….

Asiatic lilies are a plant that in the right conditions can develop roots from leaf cuttings. Not all plants work this way but some lilies develop bulbils from the leaf area. This technique below uses that trait to help stimulate root growth from the ends of the leaves. How to Propagate Asiatic Lilies from Leaves I took six leaves from…

One of the easiest ways to make a new plant is layering. Layering is where you allow the plant to create new roots on a branch while still connected to the mother plant. The advantage to layering is the connection to the mother plant. It continues to feed the offshoot branch allowing it to form the new roots to sustain…

Fall is a great time of the year. It’s always been my favorite season because of the fall colors, the cooler weather, and there are always events to enjoy. The vegetable garden is enjoys the cooler weather too. Gone now are the peppers and tomatoes, which both succumbed to frost, but instead we have kale, pak choi, mustard, and Brussels…