Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

For a long time now I have denigrated my Bradford pear tree.  It’s smelly in the spring, although it looks nice.  It produces loads of inedible fruit that spawns offspring in my garden and everywhere else the birds decide to fly.  Bradford pear trees are generally weak trees that split because of their “V” shaped branch unions that cluster with more…

Today was one of those days where you just don’t seem to be able to get much done! The weather was unseasonably warm (in the 70’s) and was just great day to be outside with the exception of the high wind. Because of the billowing gusts we didn’t go outside until my youngest daughter (3 months now) went to sleep….

The Middle Tennessee Plant Swap is tomorrow. I’ll write more about it later. Here is what I’m bringing:4 Russian Sages 2 Red Twig Dogwoods14 Japanese Dappled Willows (Salix integra) 12 Euonymous fortunei (‘Emerald Gaiety’) 4 Blue Spruce Sedums8 Purple Leaf Plums4 Nandinas (courtesy of the birds) 2 Chrysanthemums of an unknown color and variety.I’ll tell you about what I bring…

With the growing season coming to a close its time to start planning for next year’s landscape. Every now and then I like to design landscapes for people. Here is a sample of a small garden design that I made for a couple friends of ours. Its actually a memorial garden and is suitable for almost any corner of a…

I’m a little late on this post but here it is! What questions did people ask in September? Here’s a glimpse of what information some people were looking for and wound up here!How fast does Russian sage grow? Pretty fast! I put in two plants this spring from cuttings and they grew to full size and bloomed. They had ideal…

Salvia is a excellent plant to put in a garden. They are drought tolerant (which is important in Tennessee) and look great. They also come in many colors including red, pink, white, orange, blue, and purple. Depending on where you live and the variety you choose it may be a perennial or an annual. According to the website Floridata, there…

Green onions are a delicious topping to many soups and salads but they will go bad fast when stored in the refrigerator crisper drawer. However there is a way to keep green onions fresh for several weeks or more, and it’s so simple! To keep your green onions fresh put them with the bulb end down in a jar or…

I finally managed to get my Indoor Hanging Wall Planter Project up on the wall!  I ran out of screws so I’ll have to run to the store to pick up a couple more and make sure it stays up securely.  It’s fine for now but I definitely need those screws attached before adding pots and soil for plants.  I…

Picking a photo for Gardening Gone Wild’s Photo monthly contest was a challenge. The subject matter for September is ornamental grasses. I took photos of the grass leaves, the seed heads, and from different perspectives and finally settled on the first picture of the Miscanthus sinensis ‘Zebrinus’. I liked the second picture of the seedheads because of the similar orientation…

It’s time for a few herb cuttings!  Surely you didn’t think it would be too long before the plant propagation posts began again?  The warm weather is here – early – but the plants have responded and it’s time to take some stem tip cuttings.  My wife finds these posts boring and floats right by but hopefully you won’t. 😉…

Ahh, watermelon! The pure and sweet taste of summer. What summer in the south would be complete without this large juicy fruit in its predominant role as the picnic desert of choice?So here today I will show you the wonderful watermelon I have grown.The vine rests in our raised bed vegetable garden.In fact the watermelon vine is the only thing…

On Saturday I purchased most of the vegetable seeds that we plan on growing for this season. We are dividing seeds with my parents since neither of us need all the seeds this year. The raised beds still need to be assembled but the wood is in the garage just waiting to be used. We also bought some herb and…

This winter I gathered some seed from a yucca (Yucca filamentosa) and saved it. I’m not sure exactly why other than I thought it might be interesting to see how they grow. I do that sometimes, where I just attempt something for the sake of attempting it (I once planted lemon seeds from a store bought lemon to see if…

It’s finally time to get the chore to end all chores done: cleaning up the vegetable garden.  After a year of intermittent neglect, frustration, summer heat, and family tragedy it is definitely time to put this year’s garden under wraps.  Mostly under wraps that is.  We actually have a crop of greens on the way to help feed the family…

This past weekend I jumped headlong into the patio paving construction process. I mentioned this project in my August project post and here’s how it all begins. My first step was laying out the edging stones to figure out the layout of the patio. Now you might ask “wouldn’t it be better to draw a layout of the patio first?”…

Over the last two months life has thrown many curveballs that have beaned the batter on numerous occasions. You would think that I’d be making some runs here or there but unfortunately I seem to be getting out at third every time. What does this baseball analogy have to do with anything? Well sometimes we get taken away from what…

 Hi there!  I’m taking over dad’s blog today and giving you a bit of a tour of the garden. Or at least of the things I like about the garden! I’m not quite sure what he’s trying to do out there.  He digs a lot, sticks funny plants in the ground, and dumps water out everywhere.  But I get to…