Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Whenever you start to design an Edible Landscape/Garden it helps to have some inspiration to use as a guide.  You may have a ton of ideas in your head, but – trust me on this – sometimes those ideas don’t always work!  It’s never a bad idea to have some backup ideas or to just research those ideas to see…

As you might imagine much of our time is spent in the garden. The kids are outdoors as much as possible (when the weather is cooperative).  I don’t think just being outdoors is enough, being in the garden is where children should be and here’s why: Gardening gets kids active physically. One big issue facing our country is childhood obesity…

When pruning shrubs and trees there are certain characteristics you need to look for to determine where to cut, how to cut, when to cut, or even what to cut. It’s like a good mystery movie with the who, what, when, and where! One very important thing to watch out for is crossed branches (this would be a who). Crossed…

Salvia is one of my favorite perennials to propagate and spring and summer are the best times to do root cuttings of salvia from stem tip cuttings. Pretty soon our gardens will be filled with salvia blooms and you’ll see why I like them so much. I’ll post a picture at the bottom of this post if you’re curious! The…

Pretty soon we’ll be relocating to our new home. Our family is very excited about this but it also means starting the garden all over again. Everything including raised beds, sheds, and arbors will have to be rebuilt. While this is a tremendous amount of work I think it’s a great opportunity to start again and redevelop our garden with…

Now before you go looking at my hand drawn art please note that I do not claim to be an artist, just a gardener. The paint I am used to is usually accompanied by foliage, flowers, and fruit. The “artistic rendering” below is intended to illustrate the image inside my head for one of the two concepts for the winter…

Here’s a few pictures to start your day. There is something magical about being in the forest at sunrise as things come awake among the trees.If you have planted a tree for Arbor Day this year please let me know by Thursday evening (here) and I can add a link to your post for Arbor Day on Friday! You don’t…

The vegetable garden is growing “like a weed”, in fact its growing a few of them too! I’m really pleased with the progress of most of the garden so far. There are a couple beds that need some attention but I have almost all the beds mulched with a hardwood mulch to keep most of the weeds at bay and…

…spring is here!  Spring is happening all over the place.  The trees are blooming, the bulbs are coming up all over, and of course the weeds are growing too! Daffodils and hyacinths are in full bloom and other flowers are well on their way to a beautiful spring.  Here’s a little of what we get to see in our garden:…

This Garden Blogger fall Color Project Post is all about New Autumn, that is Autumn in New England and New York! If you travel to upstate New York to visit Kerri’s Garden at Colors of the Garden (a very appropriate name, don’t you think?) you will get a grand tour of the New York Countryside in October. Peak colors of…

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 end of August is nearly here and the garden is shaping up for its conclusion.  Hopefully it will be a spectacular finish where the flowers bloom out and blend with the foliage as it turns into flaming reds, oranges, and yellows.  That may be the proverbial pipe dream as the weather has been strange this year and we don’t…

Coleus (Solenostemon now Plectranthus scutellarioides) is one of those lucky annuals that can be saved from a merciless death by frost and freeze. Coleus, which is actually a tropical perennial, can be kept indoors as a house plant then replanted outside in the spring once all danger of frost is past. Take Some Cuttings Just clip off some cuttings with a…

Coleus is one of my favorite ornamental plants (Solenostemon scutellarioides).  It functions as an annual in our zone 6b-7 but is a tropical perennial that can come back each year in the right climate.  Tennessee is definitely not the right climate!  I enjoy planting coleus because of the many varied colors it can bring to the garden.  I like the…

The current project I’m working on for Lowe’s Creative Ideas fits into two categories for me: indoor gardening and vertical gardening.  “Migration” was the theme given to us which means we were to bring the garden indoors but the issue with that for me is space.  I bring plants indoors to overwinter each year like coleus or my avocado tree…

What a weekend!  You don’t get weather like we had very often.  The thermometer hit the 70’s for the first time in a long while and we took advantage of it.  We spent very little time indoors, how could we?  After being cooped up in the house since fall any outside opportunity had to be taken. So what did we…

I have to admit I’m lovin’ my lawn right now. This is our third spring in this home and the lawn is beginning to look very nice. It’s not perfect, in fact far from it. Weeds can be found within a few feet of anywhere you look but the fescue is taking over. Areas that used to be clumps of…

The fall season is a busy one.  We’re all busy cleaning up the outside areas of our homes and gardens to prepare for colder days ahead.  The list of things to do this fall isn’t a short one but if you can fit a few more items to your list you will save yourself some time in the spring!  Let’s…