Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

A little taste of winter falls in Tennessee. It’s pretty while it lasts, too bad there’s not enough to coat the grass.Subscribe to The Home GardenStumble it!

Yesterday during a reprieve from the rain we went out to examine the state of the garden. The past two weeks I’ve been mostly concentrating on the greenhouse project and I felt it was time to see what I’ve been missing. The celosia I planted from seed this year did really well. It’s a virtually no maintenance annual unless you…

Time to gather your seeds! Get a good paper or clean plastic bag and head out to the garden. If you have more than one type of plant to gather seeds from you should grab some extra bags. After your perennials or annuals have finished for the fall, collect the dead heads on them to use next spring. Just cut…

It is pretty exciting to see a new holly cutting coming to life! This holly cutting is probably the Buford holly (Ilex cornuta) which is a popular one in the home landscape. We actually have four of them left out in out front area off the porch that came with the house. One other holly met an early demise courtesy…

Not to be confused with any other Dave’s top ten list. This is a list of the top ten chores that I need to to in my yard and garden from now until the middle of fall. They aren’t in any particular order and I will accomplish them in a similar fashion!1. Clean up the garden beds. Each bed has…

I began the first part of cleaning up the vegetable garden and preparing it for winter today. The summer garden went much longer last year and we had tomatoes until the end of the October. Unfortunately that’s not the case this year. The few tomatoes that were left on the vines were not worth waiting for them to ripen. Besides…

Since I’ve talked so much about the arbor itself I thought for this post I would highlight the garden that the arbor takes you too. If you look past the arbor you will find a quasi-Japanese shade garden nook. I say quasi because it’s a hybrid of Japanese and American plants.  The Japanese elements are the Japanese maple, a side…

This winter has been cold and nothing if not unpredictable. Here in Tennessee we’re experiencing a warm day every now and then followed by extreme cold. Hopefully now that March has arrived and spring is close things will be shaping up very soon. With that in mind I put together a project that will help me to get a jump…

When the fruit first begins to form in your vegetable garden you may notice a condition where the blossom ends of the fruit turns brown to black then begins to rot away. This can happen to a number of different vegetable garden producers like tomatoes, squash, peppers, and more. Aptly named “Blossom End Rot”, this condition is nothing to be…

The other day while my youngest daughter was taking her morning nap my other daughter and I went out to play in the garden. It was a nice August day, very atypical as it was comfortably in the 80’s. Our first stop was down to her garden. It was full of the zinnias and sunflowers that we planted several weeks…

Recently our family made a visit to the Cheekwood Botanical Gardens in Nashville, TN. If you have never taken the opportunity to visit you should. The gardens are filled with a wonderful display of annuals, perennials, and themed gardens. Currently they have various playhouses on display with multiple themes like trains and foreign countries. We happened to be visiting with…

While the winter is still in gear I thought it might be helpful to begin reviewing some of the toughest plants I have grown over the years. I’ve grown a lot of them (and killed a few of them along the way). In my garden it has to be a tough plant to survive over the years. Today I’m going…

Dogwood leaves turning a deep red for fall in Tennessee! Last year when we bought our land I knew there would be challenges. There always are when building a home. I’ve helped a number of people over the last several years get homes built and I’ve seen all sorts of issues from the construction side of…

A few weeks ago Mr. Brownthumb posted an interview with the inventor of Rootcups on Treehugger. Rootcups are an easy to use propagation device that the home gardener can use to help propagate some of their favorite plants.  I contacted Mr. Brownthumb because I was curious about the product and and then got in touch with Mike who sent me…

A character on one of my favorite shows “Heroes” calls himself a “master of space and time.” Hiro can stop time and let it resume whenever he wants. At one time he was even able to go forward and backward through time. Wouldn’t that be a cool power to have? But this post is not about superpowers, it’s about becoming…

This plant of the week resembling a swooping bird is known as Trillium grandiflorum! Trillium is a member of a group of plants called the ephemerals. And no, it is not some sort of new rock band, but a group of flowers that appear in late winter and go through a two month cycle. They flower, seed, and die back…

To say that deer have been a challenge over the years is somewhat of an understatement. Deer love to graze around my garden. In fact over the last couple months we’ve watched as a family of deer has grown. Several fawns appeared in the garden and have been growing like the weeds. Gardeners and deer can coexist but as a…

Every garden experiences pest issues form time to time.  Insect pest can be frustrating and sometimes when you discover what is damaging your plants it’s already too late to do anything about it.  Here are five common insect pests that you may see in your garden for today’s Friday Five post!   Pest #1: Flea beetles You’ll first notice flea…