Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

One of the lesser shown areas of my yard this year has been the sideyard and corner shade garden. In the past I’ve featured it quite a bit but to be honest I’ve been disappointed with it this year. After I removed a cedar tree in the spring the morning sun began to cook the hostas in the garden. They…

If you every wondered exactly why the beautyberry is called a beautyberry I’ll give you two words: “Beauty” and “berry!” These beautiful purple clusters of purple berries are well worth the wait each year for the autumn display. I’ve added several new beautyberries from cuttings to my garden this year and can’t wait until their display matches the first one…

Technically my title is completely incorrect!  We did have snow in January and February but this is the first snowfall of the coming winter season.  And technically this isn’t even officially winter yet.  I’m just breaking all the rules for this post! I’m going wild! Anyway…yesterday we had a light snowfall.  It was the kind of snow that was so…

Who is this peaking up from the mulch in my garden? Give me your best guess! You may have some of these coming up in your garden too. I’ll show pictures as it grows for you to find out if your guess is correct.Here is the update. I bet you can guess it now. The variegated green leaves are pushing…

Last summer I took cuttings from one of my viburnums and a couple spireas. They have a good start this year and are beginning to put on new growth. The viburnum came from a softwood cutting that was about 3-4 nodes long. I need to transplant it into some better soil since all I used for it over the winter…

It’s been a difficult year for many of use to get the optimum fall color shots since rains seem to be perpetual but Garden Lily has managed some very cool shots of her Canadian landscape! Cascading Japanese maples, beautyberry bushes, and burning bushes all provide some unique fall color in different ways. Go check out Garden Lily’s Flowers and Weeds…

This summer I finally went out and bought my own rain barrel to install on our house. I’ve been looking for a long time for food grade barrels to make my own but they seem to be increasingly hard to find as the idea of converting them into rain barrels is becoming increasingly popular. I found this Fiskars Rain Barrel…

It’s amazing how much is growing right now. I feel like all of a sudden everything has emerged in one moment of synchronicity. From the trees and shrubs to the perennials – something is happening everywhere I look. It’s exciting, yet exasperating as there just isn’t enough time to get everything done or talk about a fraction of everything happening…

“Sending out an S.O.S., a chipmunk in a bottle” Although not quite the words of Sting and The Police the alteration was definitely appropriate today. I was walking through the garage after having planted three small boxwoods and I heard a strange scratching sound. My first thought was that a lizard had gotten stuck in the window. Then I began…

As crazy as it sounds I’m still putting plants in the ground with temperatures up around 100!  The weather may be hot but sometimes you just have to deal with it and move on with your garden plans.  Usually a plant will perform much better with less water requirements if it has been planted in the ground rather than left…

This past weekend while the weather was looking pretty close to awesome we re-made the roof window on my greenhouse shed. The first attempt was leaking in a couple small spots which prompted me to re-think the whole design before the project was too far along. I found out while I was removing the first attempt that if I had…

Yes you read the title right. My greenhouse shed project is mostly screwed. Rather than use nails to hold everything together we’re using coated deck screws as they tend to hold things much better and if you mess something up it’s easier to fix!  The three disadvantages of this is it takes longer, the drill eventually runs out of power…

It’s getting close now. Can you feel it? Seed starting time! In preparation for my seed starting activities of 2020 I thought it would be fun to tell you about my favorite tomato and pepper varieties for Growing The Home Garden. In this video I go through some of my tried and try peppers and tomato varieties. They may not…

I took this picture over the weekend while the afternoon sun was beginning to descend. It was taken from the very back of our yard looking up toward the treetops of sassafras, dogwood, tulip poplar, and walnut. The fall colors are beginning their peak time and I know I’ll be loading my camera card with many more pictures than I…

Finally some rain! This weekend is bringing us some much needed rain, unfortunately it’s in the form of thunderstorms. I guess that’s better than nothing. The last few weeks have been much drier than a normal April. “April showers” is the well known cliche but it just hasn’t seemed to work out that way. So far today we’ve received over…

Could their be a more aptly named plant than ‘Silver Mound’? Artemisia schmidtiana has several common names like wormwood, mugwort, sagebrush, or just silver mound (which to me is the most descriptive.) This mounding perennial has soft silvery gray foliage that invites the casual observer reach down to touch it. It’s hard to walk by without petting the ‘Silver Mound’….

There are few fall performers more majestic than the beautyberry.  My beautyberry is Callicarpa dichtoma ‘Early Amethyst’ and is a native of Asia.  It’s a beautiful shrub with tiny white flowers in the summer that become loaded with clusters of purple berries in the fall.  When I say loaded, I mean loaded! The berries last throughout the fall and typically…

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…