Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Have you tried rooting hardwood cuttings only to have them rot or fail to grow? Don’t give up just yet. Hardwood propagation is one of the most rewarding ways to grow your garden for free, but there are a few “make or break” steps that determine your success. While you can take cuttings anytime during the dormant season, I find…

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…

Recently I went over to our property and filmed a short video showing where our vegetable garden could eventually be. It’s fun to imagine the good that the future holds but at the same time it’s frustrating that we aren’t already digging in that dirt! I have all kinds of ideas in mind for the gardens. Edible vegetable areas, fruit…

I found these little insects today resting and munching on our Asclepias tuberosa (Butterfly weed). They are known as milkweed bugs or Oncopeltus fasciatus. According to the University of Arizona Extension the milkweed bugs feed on: Seeds and tissue of the milkweed plant (Asclepias spp.). In captivity, the bugs feed on shelled sunflower seeds. I’m trying to figure out the…

This time of year can be very confusing.  Especially when the weather throws a few curve balls like extra warm temperatures!  It almost makes you think it will be fine to plant those tomatoes four weeks early.  I know why, everyone wants bragging rights about that first ripe tomato! I thought for today’s Friday Five post that I would mention…

Fall has always been one of my favorite times of the year. The fall color was especially nice this year all over Middle TN. For a while I really wondered how great it would be due to the dry conditions we had in the summer and early fall. The rains eventually came and our fall color was spectacular! Today I…

Sometimes when you look really close at things they appear much different than you expect. Sometimes closeup pictures appear almost…alien. Like a strange land that contains unique flora of its own. What do you think? Can you imagine the foreign fluffy ferns and gigantic puffy cup-shaped mushroom fungi? Can you disappear for a moment into the picture and immerse yourself…

A cut flower business sounds like a neat idea doesn’t it? It’s a lot of work but if you enjoy gardening with flowers it may be a great business for you. I’ve compiled a list of potential cut flowers that would make good options for a cut flower business. Check out the list below. This list of plants is certainly…

For those of you who took a stab at the Name that Seed post they were seeds from a Common Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana)! In the fall you can see these fruit trees laden with orange pulpy fruit. According to my Field Guide to Trees from the National Audubon Society persimmon trees grow up to 70 feet tall with and thrive…

Today I was stumbling through Stumble Upon and happened to come across a great tutorial on building a $50 greenhouse!  What is especially cool is that the author of the blog (The Door Garden) who wrote the tutorial is also a Tennessean (Cookeville).  The greenhouse he built is a hoop house made from PVC and has about 165 square feet…

As yesterday we saw more and more fall color from the south in Virginia and Tennessee today brings us more proof that fall is here in the Southern U.S.. SC Gardener has fall foliage that is well worth a look! One post entitled Fall Color Isn’t Just for Trees: Shrubs With Fall Leaf Color gives us a look at the…

You may not believe me but snakes really can be a garden’s (and gardener’s) best friend!  Many people carry a fear of these creatures.  I can understand being afraid of poisonous snakes but the others are quite beneficial.  Yesterday while I was outside near my vegetable garden putting in some outdoor plant shelves (made from old wooden pallets) I moved…

Today we had a light snow drop down over our gardens in Tennessee.  It isn’t the craziest thing to happen but it’s not something that gardeners enjoy.  We would much rather have the sunny and warm days that spring is known for!  Here’s our garden after a light dusting. Grape hyacinths.  Snow around the flower covered Bradford Pear tree.  …

I successfully rooted a Florida dogwood (Cornus florida) from a cutting! This is a tree that’s been tricky in the past for me to propagate, and I finally had some success I think is worth sharing. In this post, I’ll walk you through exactly what worked, step-by-step instructions for how to root flowering dogwood cuttings yourself, and some tips and…

As you can see from the picture to the left that this tree has taken a beating. Last fall when the deer were out in force a buck decided to rut against several of my favorite trees. Coincidentally all the deer damaged trees were young trees that I had planted in the yard including two maples, a dogwood and one…

After being cooped up all winter my daughters and I hightailed it to the backyard and spent the day outdoors digging in the dirt. We accomplished many of the chores I mentioned on Friday (wait they weren’t chores because I enjoyed doing them!). One of those tasks was a rearrangement of the vegetable garden. I wanted to move four small…

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…

We were sitting at the breakfast table on Sunday morning when an unusual sight appeared from the wooded area in the back of our yard. We watched as this dog-like apparition glided from the woods and crept across the grass. It was a coyote and it wasn’t a welcome sight to my eyes. As a father of two small children…