Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

It hardly seems to me that spring had even started before it was gone.  This growing season has gone by so quickly, or maybe I’m just getting too busy!  Unfortunately the garden has been through some rough times.  Drought and unbelievable record heat have crippled gardening in many ways from killing plants to keeping gardener’s with common sense indoors (although…

A springtime flowering favorite of mine is the Yoshino cherry tree (Prunus x yedoensis).  I’ve written about these trees several times in the past and I know I’ll write about it again as it is such a valuable tree in the landscape for it’s ornamental beauty. I’ve never been able to root this tree…until now!  A couple months ago I…

A couple weeks ago I saw a picture posted on Facebook with a display of sedums all planted in an old wheelbarrow.  It was a pretty creative idea to re-use a wheelbarrow that may have just been discarded and turn it into something of interest.  This gave me an idea for my latest project for Lowe’s Creative Ideas.  The theme…

This summer there will be another wedding in the family. My wife’s brother will be getting married to his longtime girlfriend on July 12th. What does this have to do with gardening? The ceremony is going to be help at my in-laws house in their backyard and I will need to help plan the landscaping for the area surrounding the…

A line of storms came through last night dropping the temperature nearly 20 degrees in an hour. Strong rain and wind blew all over Tennessee. Here in our yard we received about an inch of rain throughout the day. Fortunately our damage was minimal. Probably the worst thing affected was our sleep. The neighbor’s fence gate blew open and their…

You can go out and spend all kinds of money for a fancy compost bin but sometimes a simple solution can work just as well. In the interest of full disclosure, I am a lazy composter. There I said it. I don’t get out there to the bin to turn it regularly. I don’t check it with a fancy compost…

Here’s a clever idea for a theme garden: A Music Garden! And what better place for a music garden than in Music City, USA (AKA Nashville, TN) the home of country music. An article in today’s Tennessean highlighted this garden that was planted back in the spring with plants named for various songs and music themes. from The Tennessean: for…

One long anticipated task for me and my garden shed was the painting. It’s come a long way over the course of the past year – from nothing to an actual building capable of storing my lawn equipment, but I’ve really been looking forward to completing the painting. Even if the inside isn’t completely arranged and finished at least the…

There are very few gardens I know of that don’t have some sort of wind chime.  Wind chimes add an extra audio element to the garden as well as a touch of whimsy.  There is quite a variety of wind chimes to choose from out there and it all depends on what you like.  Recently Windchimesonline.net sent me three bamboo…

Friday afternoon and evening I was in the yard and garden vigorously hauling compost from truck to the raised beds. Fortunately one yard of compost was all that was necessary to complete the filling of the beds.   Saturday’s task will be mulch: mulch for the garden paths and for various other locations around the yard. I can’t wait to…

It’s been a long while since I’ve mentioned anything about the goings on in my garden shed world. This should take too long, after all it is February, not much is growing, and it’s a small world afterall! Let’s dig right in and look to see how things have overwintered!Right now I’m using my shed as a holding area to…

OK, I wouldn’t have titled the article with Pimp My Yard (I’m really not cool enough to do that) but there’s a very good article on Slate about garden coaching as an emerging horticultural profession.  Garden coaches offer guidance for do-it-yourselfers who want to learn how to garden better.  For more information beyond the Slate article go check out Susan…

For those of you who are interested in the status of my garden shed I posted a little more on the floor. I’m out of bricks and didn’t quite get the whole area covered but I’m happy with the progress for now.  Let me know what you think!

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…

In the south it’s a necessity to get up early to get outside for gardening. Any delay into the mid-morning will result in unnecessary suffering due to the heat and humidity! This morning was already very humid before 8 AM. In the summer it is much worse and this morning’s humidity is just a sign of rain on it’s way….

When it comes to vegetables from the garden sweet potatoes are a family favorite. The delicious sugary sweet baked sweet potato is an amazing side dish! Or we sometimes roast sweet potatoes with other vegetables to make a delicious dish in our favorite iron skillet. The nice thing about sweet potatoes is how easy they are to grow. In 2020…

Today I actually found myself in a home improvement store looking for paint for the garden shed. How I found myself or more importantly how I got lost there I’ll never know but I ended up coming home with four gallons of paint. The colors will be revealed at a later date. They aren’t groundbreakingly unique colors but I think…

A character on one of my favorite shows “Heroes” calls himself a “master of space and time.” Hiro can stop time and let it resume whenever he wants. At one time he was even able to go forward and backward through time. Wouldn’t that be a cool power to have? But this post is not about superpowers, it’s about becoming…