Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

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…

Today was beautiful. The sun was out and the temperature was in the low to mid 60’s. That’s what I call perfect garden weather! I didn’t have much time to garden but needed to do a little something and was able to spend about 30 minutes on a small project. Back in the fall I used my black tarp technique…

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…

Melinda over at Elements in Time has issued a challenge to bloggers to grow one more thing than they did last year and talk about it each week! I’d probably talk about it anyway but this seemed like a good idea to see what others are doing in their gardens. Go over and check out what it’s all about!

Welcome to completely random gardening. For this post I had a hodgepodge of things to update you on that really can’t be grouped into any kind of category for one single post to talk about. So we’ll just have to talk a little bit about everything!The Greenhouse ProjectI managed to do a little digging on the greenhouse foundation yesterday. I…

Since I bought my new toy (a Sony Handycam HDR-CX130) I’ve been playing around with filming my garden in different areas. I have to admit – talking to a camera by oneself while wandering around your garden is a weird sensation. I’m convinced that my neighbors already think I’m crazy and I doubt video recording my garden is going to…

Lately the birds have been returning to the feeders. These goldfinches (Carduelis tristis) all dressed in their winter coats after molting are partaking of a feast of niger seed, which is excellent for attracting finches.  Like all birds they seem to prefer the seed d’jour. Afterall who doesn’t like the fresh stuff?  Thistle, coreopsis, sunflower, service berry, birch, and alder…

The other day I mentioned I had another daylily that was about to bloom called ‘Primal Scream’, well that daylily is screaming now! ‘Primal Scream’ has large orange blooms that have faint hints of reddish coloring in the outer edges of the petals and a more true orange color the further toward the center. I planted my ‘Primal Scream’ daylily…

The siding is mostly up except for the gables and the almost secret doors are in place! You can see a picture of the backside of my greenhouse garden shed over on the greenhouse page. It’s not often that I will encourage people to look at my backside, but for the greenhouse I’ll make an exception! 😉

Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) is indeed easy to propagate from hardwood cuttings.  In fact taking hardwood cuttings may prove more reliable than from softwood cuttings.  I’ll continue with both methods at the appropriate times of the year but the hardwood cuttings have not had any trouble with rotting or any other signs of problems.  In general hardwood cuttings are best…

One major reason many of us garden is to enjoy seeing wildlife. I think it’s pretty rare to find a gardener who doesn’t also enjoy a little bird watching. Birds can be great to have around the garden as well. Kingsyard recently sent me a squirrel proof bird feeder and a bluebird house to put up in my garden. I…

Today the major player in Bloomsday action is the tulip! Some of these pictures were taken a couple days ago so you can see the blooming process better but all of the flowers you see in this post are currently in bloom.Here is the bed in the front garden. This picture was taken from behind the tulips toward the sidewalk….

I have to admit it, I’m way behind on the Facebook thing! I’m just now getting around to adding an official Facebook page for The Home Garden where people can follow the blog. Many other garden bloggers have already created pages there and it really looks like an easy way for people to keep up with their favorite blogs. So…

The leaf show hasn’t begun in the south just yet so now is a great opportunity to look at some common leaves before the color changes begin! For a list of Native trees to the United States and information on how to propagate them go to this page: United States Native Tree Propagation List Redbuds Red Buds (Cercis canadensis) are…

Since fall is approaching at breakneck speed it’s worth taking time to mention one of the most important aspects of fall – the leaves!  Or more specifically what to do with them! First here’s what not to do with your fall leaves: Don’t burn them – the most wasteful thing you can do.  Don’t bag them and put them by the…

Over the weekend I planted an ‘October Glory’ maple tree. I chose this tree as one of my first fall plantings of 2025 for a several reasons. One of those reasons was a little sentimental. You see when my wife and I bought our first home an ‘October Glory’ was the first tree we planted there. We wanted a nice…

My rain garden is well underway and now is the time to plan my next project. I still need to plant the rain garden so it will remain on the list but there are a host of other projects to talk about. This will be the first of two posts. One post is just to list what has been started…

The other day I wrote about the value of using echinacea in the garden. As it turns out that it’s not only valuable to us as an ornamental or as a pollen plant for beneficial insects but it also can be a host plant for the Silvery Checkerspot butterfly (Chlosyne nycteis)! This weekend I discovered this mass of tiny black…