Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

The peak fall color this year is on its way and Tina has a great post for us with lots of Autumn color to share!  Tina writes the blog In the Garden and lives in Woodlawn, TN which is north of Nashville and just south of Kentucky. What fall color does her garden have to offer?  How about a Korean…

The Dandelion(Taraxacum officinale)You know this pretty little face don’t you? Staring up at you with it’s bright golden feathery petals gleaming in the sun. It is a pretty little flower in it’s own way. Almost…dandy. But its pretty exterior hides how fierce this weed really is. It spreads fast if not contained.This little flower from the Asteraceae family will spread…

One of my favorite shrubs is the Japanese dappled willow (Salix integra).  In the springtime its new foliage emerges with variegated green and cream leaves that persist through the fall.  The leaves darken some as they grow older (or for those who prefer different terminology “grow more mature”) until they bare themselves when the light levels drop and cooler temperatures…

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…

I didn’t want to just have one plant to show so I added the Nandina above. Its berries are showing some pretty good winter color.Here you can see the tiny blooms of our Mediterranean White Heather. Erica x darlelensis would look great as mass border planting. Too bad I only have the one, I’ll have to add more this year!

Through the diamond shaped hanging frames of the Arbor I spied a daylily and a salvia in the front garden. The blooming of the daylilies has begun!  Arbor voting is still in progress!

A morning sun picture taken on Saturday October 4th, 2008.

Take a Walk Down the Garden Path and visit some Pennsylvania fall color.  Cindy’s pictures are an excellent example of lighting and color blended to make perfect pictures.  The maples are turning and shedding their leaves creating a carpet of color.  Fantastic images of fall are all around Pennsylvania!

This was definitely the year for trying new melons, at least here at The Home Garden. Yesterday I showed you the ‘Tigger’ melon we grew and tasted, today let’s welcome ‘Old Time Tennessee’ to the blog! Where the ‘Tigger’ melon is small, compact, and tasty ‘Old Time Tennessee’ is large, football shaped (perfect for football season), and tasty.  You will…

It’s time! I’ve already noticed a few leaves of the cherries and sassafras beginning to turn colors on their way to some fantastic fall foliage. Our August temperatures gave us a preview of the weather ahead but it couldn’t show us the potential color show that autumn brings. With fall foliage comes the 2009 edition of The Fall Color Project….

It isn’t often I have a product to test in my garden where I actually say “Holy crap, this is awesome!” when no one else is around. Really. Products that good are really hard to come by because I’m fairly picky. A few weeks ago I was sent two items from Fiskars to try out. For disclaimer purposes I was…

One of my recent projects was to complete two entrances to our front sidewalk from the lawn.  The openings were already there but didn’t have any definition – or at least any good definition that a person walking along would see a clear path to the sidewalk.  I had some paving stones in the backyard set aside for another project (an extension to our…

Beware gardeners for danger may lurk beneath a rock. Though a rock may be a home to many creatures there are few that rival the venomous Black Widow spider. This spider is one of only two spiders gardeners in Tennessee have to watch out for, the other is the brown recluse. The black widow loves to lurk underneath rocks and…

My fall garden is much less impressive than the trees that surround us. In fact if you were to take away the trees little else would be remaining with any significant color. There are a few things that defeat my previous statement in our garden but I see a definite need for improvement in the fall color area. When I…

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…

May is a great time in the garden. The plants are full of growth, flowers are coming alive, the weather is good (except when it’s not 😉 ) and the irises are blooming! Lots of other things are blooming too but the irises are the standouts of the moment. The iris flowers even withstood the harsh rains of last weekend…

‘Autumn Joy’ Sedum seed heads persist through winter. This time of year the flowers are mostly faded and few things have retained enough foliage to be markedly interesting.  But those faded flowers have left something behind – seeds!  Seeds can do a few of very cool things: They sustain the plant species for the coming year as new plants are…

This fall I took a scraggly looking branch off a little burning bush I had. The botanical name is Euonymous alata. These bushes are green during most of the growing season but turn fiery red in the fall before they lose their leaves. It is for this reason that people plant them. Yesterday I checked the cutting’s progress. I wasn’t…