Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Red Spider Lily that is!  This Saturday I was mowing and passed by one of the garden beds on my riding mower when this bright red flower jumped out at me.  Did it really jump?  Nope but one day it wasn’t there and now here it is. Spider lilies (Lycoris radiata) are also called a variety of names like Naked…

There are many ways to grow tomatoes. In the past I generally used tomato cages to hold up my plants. One method I’ve been trying lately in my garden is trellising. When you trellis a tomato plant you create a structure that allows the tomato to get good sunlight and airflow around the plant. This get help out immensely if…

This week I put together another project in the vegetable garden. It was a little one that was another step toward designing my vegetable garden as a parterre style garden layout.  The idea for this project was to create something that was both edible and ornamental! I decided that working in the vegetable garden was the way to go.  Vegetables…

How about you?

In my latest YouTube video I went through and checked on many of the plants I’ve taking cuttings from this summer. There are a variety of plants in the video including rosemary, ninebark, fothergilla, boxwoods, crape myrtle, and cherry laurels. This was actually the first time I’ve tried rooting fothergilla and I had pretty good success taking a few small…

Though I have not told her, I have officially named my wife’s snowman Gumdrop. You will see why when you look at the picture! The snow was dry and hard to pack. At least it was for a while, later in the day it melted some and snowmen of various shapes and sizes appeared through out the land as if…

I love a nice Japanese maple! Who doesn’t? There are Japanese maples  with variegated leaves, ones with deep burgundy colors, others with interesting shaped leaves that are highly dissected and many other kinds. The fall color on a Japanese is almost always guaranteed to be something special.  Their highly ornamental nature makes them very popular trees in the landscape. Last summer I gathered…

I am always trying to find new uses for old things. To a some extent I’m a recycler, to an even greater extent I’m a pack-rat. It is just a hard thing for me to throw something away that I might want to use someday. Knowing this, it should come as no great surprise that I tried to find some…

The other day I came up with an idea for a rustic planter. I had this piece of a pallet left over from my old potting bench that I didn’t have any particular use for. The old pallet itself was the table potion of my previous potting bench and I cut off a piece of the pallet to make the…

Last year I embarked on a quest to start my own nursery business.  One of my dreams for a long time has been to own my own nursery and I began putting plans together around a couple business ideas that I could do from home.  I researched all over the internet to find resources and advice on how to start…

The earliest vegetables to emerge from our vegetable garden are the sugar snap peas. I planted them back in February but the cold temperatures kept the peas from coming up as early as I hoped. I planted two 3’x4′ raised beds with the peas in the hopes that we would enjoy a large crop this year. Several of the seeds…

When I started putting together our first garden areas in our blank slate of a yard I always second guessed myself. Every planting was met with the oncoming thought “is this going to work like I want it to?” or “does this look right?” Ideas flow freely from my mind all the time and I always try to imagine what…

This week’s name that seed might be a challenge.  The seeds are in the exact state that I found them in however they do not look exactly like they would if they were freshly formed on a tree.  Here is your one clue: the tree prefers shade.  All answers should be posted by the morning of Monday December 22, 2008…

It’s almost time for this gardener to get some lettuce growing in the vegetable garden and I don’t have a lettuce update yet for the GROW project but I can show you how the basil and marigold seeds have done. We’ve been suffering from drought over the last few weeks and watering on a daily basis is becoming a necessary…

I’ve been gradually tinkering away at the garden shed. A few tasks are underway that are necessary before the next big step for the outside – painting! I’ve been busy sealing up the cracks around all the openings with caulk. I think I’m just over halfway done with the caulking on the outside. The caulking around the big windows on…

Even though Zinnias begin with the letter “Z” they shouldn’t be your last thought for your garden. I’ve found that zinnias rival any other flower for attractive hummingbirds and butterflies. Hummingbirds love them, so much so that feeders are unnecessary. They are easy to grow, just sprinkle some seed where you want them and keep them watered to make them…

The other day the rain garden completed a mini-test. It really was more of a pop quiz. It wasn’t multiple choice or fill in the blank. It was true or false, did it work or not? There was only about 0.34 inches of rain but it easily handled that amount. Here’s what the drainage looked like before the rain garden…

Imagine my puzzlement when I glanced at one of my two spireas and saw empty branches. This was a plant that was flushing out with its reddish amber to golden leaves just a couple days ago. The leaves around the tips were completely intact but some of the stems were nearly naked. What caused this damage? Aphids! What do Aphids…