Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

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…

Hollyhocks! These plants are simply enormous. I haven’t measured them but a rough estimate of six and a half feet sounds very realistic. Unfortunately they are in a really bad location – flanking our front walkway. I should have transplanted them last year to another location more suitable but either didn’t think of it or was too lazy. Although the…

Yesterday I traveled up to the Cheekwood Botanical Gardens to listen to Tina from In the Garden. She was doing a talk on Winter Gardening and all that it entails so we thought it would be a great opportunity for us to visit with her and check out the gardens while we were there. We also visited with Gail from…

You know the saying “If you don’t like the weather in {Insert your state here}, just wait a few minutes!” In the last two days, and possibly much of January, truer words could not be said about the weather here in Tennessee. Gray skies have been intermittent with occasional sun. The temperatures have been warm, rainy, and much more like…

I suppose this summer I’ve concentrated my efforts in a couple areas, my vegetable garden and the front sidewalk garden. While we want bunches of fresh vegetables this year we also want our home to look nice for anyone who happens to come by. I’m pleased with the progress we’ve made on the front sidewalk garden. I’ve strayed somewhat from…

Yesterday MeemsNYC asked me in the comment section of my What Would Thanksgiving Be Without the Nuts? Plant them of course! I gathered up a small box of acorns and brought them home with me from my in-law’s house. You’re probably wondering why would he gather up a bunch of acorns to plant when they self sow readily on their…

Mid July finds my garden a little bit rough around the edges. The need for more garden time is always present with gardens needing weeded, the lawn needing mowed and cleaned up, tomatoes that need re-staked, and many other garden chores. It’s not just the lack of garden time though, the weather has played a significant role. No rain for…

Friday we had thunderstorms rolling through Middle Tennessee. The rain came down fast with the accompanying winds. This storm cleated tornadoes that tore apart homes one county south of us. Here are some pictures I took of the storm coming. The rain fell very quickly. Our rain gauge measured at least half an inch of rain in 15 to 20…

Last week I told you about a garden pavilion I’ve been working on and off again in my parents yard. I was working on building the railing to begin enclosing the structure for eventual screening. We completed the rails last Wednesday and here’s how it looks now. The railing pattern: We designed this pattern after a couple images we saw…

One of the first things to greet anyone at our house is the mailbox garden. It’s the first thing that people see as they drive by or visit. It’s also about the only thing you can see of our gardens from a distance since our house sits down below the street level in a cul-de-sac that most people probably don’t…

Here is Part Two of my weekly series of posts about gardening on a budget, Thrifty Gardening Tips.One of the best ways to get plants and other garden paraphernalia is through other gardeners that you know. Those who garden are generous people and always seem to want to encourage others in gardening endeavors. Often all you have to do is…

The time has come! I finally purchased my own domain name this week and got everything all set up. Hopefully since I’m still using Blogger and everything is still hosted there everything should function as normal. If there are any issues please let me know but you should be able to use all the old links that you may have…

Late August is an important time in the garden. The summer heat is still with us, but cooler weather is on the way. For gardeners in zone 7, this is the point where preparation meets transition—wrapping up the summer season while setting the stage for fall and even next spring. If you’re in a warmer zone, you may have more…

Over the weekend we visited my in-laws for Easter. While there I always explore the edges of the woods and sometimes deeper but I really didn’t have to journey far to find this trillium. It was among a grouping of several other trilliums on the edge of a cedar glade woods in their backyard. All the trilliums were the sessile…

I wish I could say I had thousands of plants sitting in the backyard from my plant propagation experiments but unfortunately I’ve just been too busy to do much this year. That isn’t to say I’m not happy with what I’ve accomplished. Sometimes the uniqueness of the experience is much more valuable and satisfying than quantity produced.  What I’m especially…

This winter has been bitterly cruel.  Not bitterly cold, just bitterly cruel.  It’s tempted us into believing that spring was almost here, then the ground hog predicted 6 more weeks of winter..and we laughed. The weather was warm and what do groundhogs really know about the weather?  Do they have live Doppler radar in buried in their dens?  I don’t…

These two crepe myrtles are holding strong to their color. Although these bright red and orange beauties are not mine, I did manage to get a couple seedlings from them to plant in my yard. Most people think of crepe myrtles for their summer flowering colors, but these two are evidence that there is more to a myrtle than meets…

Our garden sits precariously between zone 6b and 7.  We’re in a very borderline area with multiple micro-climates within the 1.3 acres of land we have around us.  We’re far enough into the warm season now that the frosts should not happen again until fall, but then we thought we were done with frosts over a month ago! This weekend…