Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Here is a list of topics about propagating plants for your home landscape. The first three posts have some important information on propagating plants while the individual plant posts offer information about propagating the plant in question as well as my own experiences with them. Enjoy! Propagating Plants: The Basics of Cuttings What in the World are Plant Patents? 10…

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…

Today I took the mower out for a final spin in the balmy 60 degree weather before closing shop over the winter. I’m sure the mower was appreciative of the action as it had rested in my garage for a month gathering dust. It was a good day. It was just the mower and me, man and machine, making the…

Every year I like to try a few new vegetables in the garden. New varieties add a little extra interest to the same old tomatoes and cucumbers that we grow every year. Sometimes the new varieties stick around in the memory and will be planted the next year and other times they are better left forgotten! I started my list…

I have always believed that one of our country’s greatest resources is our state and national parks. You can see why when you take a stroll down to Georgia and visit Dot’s (Strolling Through Georgia) trip to the Amicalola Falls State Park. The colors there are in varying hues of gold, red and orange. There are scenic views and of…

The first day of Spring is marked by gardeners everywhere.  Unfortunately not everyone gets to experience warm days, growing plants, and all the wonders of spring at the same time.  It’s different for every region but that doesn’t make it any less significant.  The first day of spring symbolizes the beginning of the growing season for many gardeners.  Even gardeners…

I’m sure you’ve heard about Pinterest by now.  If you’re like me you may have thought “that’s just another online time waster.” Or if you’re a guy maybe you thought “that’s just for women!” Well I’ll admit it, those were my first thoughts.  Then I began to see people using it and sharing things from it on Facebook or Twitter….

This weekend I worked on two garden projects. One took a a good deal of time to complete while the other only took about an hour and a half. The big project was a plant holding bin to hold my propagated plants that aren’t ready for in the ground planting yet. Fortunately I was the recipient of some old deck…

The layering technique is my favorite way of filling new or replenishing already established raised beds. Layering (also called Lasagna Gardening) doesn’t require tilling the soil which can disturb the lives of beneficial microbes and soil dwelling organisms. It also doesn’t destroy the soil structure (assuming you have something better than clay or sand!) Often weed seeds can lurk inside…

Recently the folks at Lowe’s Creative Ideas asked me if I could put together a once a month project using products I found at Lowe’s that fit a specific theme.  Of course since I enjoy doing these types of projects around the garden I jumped at the chance!  This month they wanted a project centered around the theme:”Pots and Plants”. …

I’ve been planning my raised bed garden for a while now and now I’ve come to another phase. Figuring out how to plant the garden. I’m planning on using a technique called companion planting. Carol at May Dreams Gardens mentioned this a couple weeks ago although she called it Three Sisters gardening. It’s concept is pretty simple, plant plants that…

We’ve all been stuck indoors too long.  It’s February and here in TN we should be getting 50 degree temperatures for highs but instead are stuck in the lower 30’s or below.  In order to help alleviate the cabin fever and feed the gardening fix I put together a little project for one of our upstairs windows.  I built a…

Who is this hiding among the Bradford Pear Blossoms?I didn’t notice the lady beetle before I took the picture. It was only after I was perusing pictures from today’s beautiful weather that I noticed the little orange and black insect hiding among the blossoms.

Tonight the weather people are expecting our first hard freeze in Tennessee. It will then officially end the growing season! This is not entirely true though. The plants are still growing roots. Plants planted now will grow strong root systems though the winter and should have great foliar growth in the spring. Here are some tips on what to do…

This time of year you will probably notice in the fields a beautiful tall purple flowering plant dominating the scene. It’s likely that it is mixed with some beautiful golden rod (solidago) creating a wonderful purple and gold landscape. That tall purple flower is a native plant called ironweed. There are several different varieties of ironweed and all of them…

OK so you’ve gotten your big seed order in the mail, now what?  What do you use to actually start the seeds in?  What kind of pots?  What kind of soil?  After deciding what seeds to order you need to know what medium to plant your future garden in.  There are a lot of variables out there to choose from,…

Stopping to smell the daylilies may get you a mild to severe case of nasal pollenitis. Symptoms include a dusty yellow-orange substance that can be found on the surfaces of the nose, possible sneezing and runny eyes, as well as a possible case of severe giggles.

The Gardening Gone Wild photo contest for February is all about Winter Light. The picture below is my entry which I took from our upstairs window out across the yard. I’m calling it Shadow Play, you can probably figure out why! The shadows of the ice covered trees are dancing across the backyard and the children’s playset creating an unusual…