Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Another day is done for the greenhouse-shed project and a little bit more has been accomplished. It’s moving along at a good pace; not too fast or hurried but careful and methodical. Yesterday we finished setting the posts and today we ended construction by putting up most of the framing for the first large picture window.Before the window framing we…

Are there any other Tennessee garden bloggers out there? I found one yesterday courtesy of Nan at Gardening Gone Wild. If you have a chance go visit Frances over at Faire Gardening over in east Tennessee. If you are a Tennessee garden blogger let me know and I’ll add you to the roll!

Have you ever been given a plant and you were told it was something then it turned out to be something else completely different? That happened to me back at the plant swap this spring. I was given several pots of ‘Black and Blue’ Salvia that day and didn’t look at any of them very closely. I was in a…

You often hear people mention the phrase the “bones of the garden.” It’s basically used to refer to the garden elements that provide some sort of structure. Many people refer to evergreen plantings as the bones since they add structure and don’t lose their leaves when the weather changes. Structures like arbors and garden shed could also be bones of…

Since today is St. Patrick’s Day and tradition dictates that we do all things green and as Irish as possible here are a few things green from my garden! We have green in the vegetable garden in the form of sugar snap peas, spinach, and lettuce! Other things haven’t come up yet for a visit like the asparagus (which I…

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…

Oak leaf hydrangeas are an awesome landscape shrub to add to the garden. They get big and need room and enjoy part shade/part sun locations but if you have the right spot for one by all means add one! I’m always trying to propagate a few more but they tend to be rather tricky to propagate from cuttings. Layering is…

Even though it’s been a short week we have lots of fall color to share for the Thanksgiving edition of the Fall Color Project! I won’t be posting for the Fall Color Project on Friday due to the Thanksgiving holiday so I thought I would highlight these posts a little early! What could be more perfect than fancy foliage, a…

Here’s just a quick list of what needs done with the rain garden in chronological order. 1) Finish excavation: I need to expand the “Big Dig” to its final size. I’m not 100% sure how much bigger I’ll make it but I want to shape into more of a curve. I also need to finish excavating the channel parallel to…

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…

The holidays are an extremely busy time of the year. We go from Halloween with spooky decorations, to Thanksgiving with autumn harvest styles, then to finally to Christmas. For those who enjoy decorating (and have the storage space for all that stuff) it can be a great deal of fun, but for others who may enjoy the holidays much more…

Today I spent some time outdoors getting a raised bed put together for our back slope. It gives the slope a somewhat terraced visual effect but the wooden bed isn’t needed to hold the slope in place. It’s done fine on its own for several years! Here’s the view from one side with the garden shed to the left. The…

This week had a couple of nice days that showed a hint of spring starting to emerge. It’s not there yet, in fact we’re far from it but officially and we’re 10 degrees below normal still (I feel like a broken record). The good news is that the sun has been out and the rains and snows have subsided somewhat…

The signs of spring are coming up all over if you know where to look.  In some cases like with the daffodils it’s obvious.  Bright yellow flowers and buds are beginning to stand up for us to take notice.  Other plants, like sedums, are beginning to show elements of growth.  On the left is an unnamed sedum that I believe…

Two falls ago (Fall of 2008) a lone buck came wandering through our yard. It was a magnificent sight to behold. Nature at its best…and its worst, at least for this gardener. You see this wandering deer was going through its normal fall ritual of rubbing its antlers for the winter. Their favorite target – young trees. That year I…

A few years ago I wrote post about propagating rosemary from cuttings placed in water. That method for propagating rosemary is a viable method for sure but you probably will have more success if you take your rosemary cuttings and stick them in soil instead. Recently I posted a video on the YouTube channel that explains both propagation methods for…

In my last post I showed you some of the perennials around our vegetable garden. In this post I’ll show you some of the perennials in the garden around our deck. Despite my title not all of these plants are perennials. One of the most striking plants in this grouping is in fact an annual – the moonflower. It blooms…

Behind the location of our future arbor lies the Corner Shade Garden. I planted this garden last year with hostas, heucheras, and assorted other plants after the removal of a sinister privet bush. Privet has become an invasive problem here in Tennessee and I just didn’t like it in this corner next to our house. In its place went an…