Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Today my little 2 year old daughter and I went out and planted daffodils. She did pretty good, dropping the bulb into the hole after I dug it out. Initially Grace kept trying to rearrange the bulbs all over the bed. Then she started taking the spade I was using to dig the holes. Eventually we got a process together…

Lately I’ve been looking back at all the pictures I took over 2009 like in my last post (the picture of rudbeckias.) Soon I’ll be talking about seeds and getting ready in earnest for 2010 gardening but I find that glancing back at the previous year’s pictures helps to guide me when it comes to the seed catalogs. I stumbled…

I started the seed selection process the other day. I ordered seeds through the American Horticultural Society’s seed exchange. I wasn’t able to contribute seeds to the exchange this year but they do allow you donate $5 and pick ten different selections from this year’s list.Here is what I picked:Rudbeckia hirtaAgastache foeniculumAsclepia tuberosa (Butterfly weed)Dianthus deltoides ‘Arctic Fire’Echinacea purpereaEchinacea purperea…

How Would You like to Win a Free Shed? If you live in the UK you just might be able to! Walton Garden Buildings, a company based in the United Kingdom, is sponsoring a design your own shed contest. The idea is for people to come up with an interesting shed design then send it in to them. They will…

I have many favorite plants (as all gardeners can attest to) but I am really a big fan of viburnums. Many viburnums have showy flowers in the spring, leafy green foliage throughout the growing season, and great fall color. Some are evergreen, many provide food for the birds in the form of berries, and they are definitely fun to grow!…

Jump on over to Our Little Acre to see the fall colors! Not my acre, Kylee’s! She has viburnums, a gingko, sumacs, and many other plants that are showing some great fall foliage. The bald cypress and the beautyberry are two that I will have to add to our garden! Don’t forget to journey up to Kalamazoo, Michigan and the…

It’s kind of an odd subject to bring up during spring but propagating mums for profit takes time. Spring is when you have to get started for fall mum sales. For the purposes of this article we are talking about the common chrysanthemum you find in stores everywhere during the fall. Also for this discussion it is important to note…

One of the most beautiful trees we have in the Spring is the Red Buckeye, Aesculus pavia. In the fall it produces seed pods which you can gather and plant to grow more red buckeye trees. Last year the squirrels beat me to it but not this year! Here’s a short video of me gathering and planting red buckeye seeds….

Our first group of irises has just started to bloom.  The iris blooms are coming much later than last year due to the cold temperatures that have pushed everything back about nearly a month.  There are a just a couple types of iris here in my garden including the tall bearded irises, the Dutch irises, and some Siberian irises like…

The first yellow crocus of the year has emerged from the front garden! Many more blooms to come!

Ninebark (Physocarpus) is a beautiful garden shrub that grows up to around 10 ft tall in the right location. Many varieties of ninebark have been developed for gardeners including ‘Diabolo’™/’Diablo’™ and ‘Coppertina’™ and can be a great addition to add a nice copper color to your garden foliage. Ninebark can also be very easy to propagate more of from cuttings….

Rather than talk about useless resolutions for 2009 I thought I would discuss my project plans for the garden. I do have one goal that encompasses all things gardening and in my life that could be considered a resolution: to do all things better than I did the last time. That one statement covers pretty much any potential resolution in…

The other day I mentioned that the Winter Jasmine would be the first thing to bloom… I was wrong! It’s the Witch hazel! It’s the first time it has bloomed in our garden. So what’s blooming in your February Garden?

I took a few more red twig dogwood (Cornus stolonifera) cuttings yesterday. One of them did not even need rooting. You can see the mass of roots on the bottom of this little guy. The base of this stem was touching the ground which stimulated root growth. When this happens it is simple task to clip the branch with the…

To say that I am ashamed of certain spots in my garden is an understatement. Several gardens have become filled with weeds run amok and whether or not the weather is cooperative I have to get some work done. Today I spent some time outdoors in the 95 degree heat tackling a couple of the raised bed problem areas in…

May is always a great time for the garden. Plants and flowers generally look great this time of year. The weather is beginning to warm but the oncoming heat of summer hasn’t bleached out the beauty of the flowers and foliage. Many things are happening around the garden and here’s a few images from my Tennessee garden at the end…

Spring is officially here and it seems like the daffodils were waiting for the memo. They are in full bloom now and their yellow flowers are a bright and happy sign that the cold dreary days of an extra long and extra cold winter are behind us. Sure we’ll have some cold days ahead, but those are little dips in…

Have you ever wondered “How do I separate those tiny seeds from the chaff?” It’s not hard and shouldn’t cost you a dime to remove all those tiny seeds. There are quite a few methods for separating the seeds from the chaff, this is just one possible method you might use. Take a used plastic container form your recycling bin….