Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

I’ve been trying for several weeks now to get my garden trellises built for the vegetable garden. This weekend I finally managed to put two together, one for my cucumbers and one for my ‘Tigger’ melons. Building these two trellises can easily be done in just a few hours. I had to decide how high I wanted them to be…

In yesterday’s post on propagating switchgrasses I left out the picture of the ‘Northwind’ Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum). Also I didn’t post any details about the two switchgrasses that I mentioned. So here’s a little more about switchgrasses! Switchgrasses are native to the United States and flourish during the warm season. In my observations they are later to emerge from winter…

Here’s the situation. I have two pots on my front steps which each house an arrangement of Dusty Miller and cordyline.  The problem is the cordyline is looking a little worse for wear.  It’s not supposed to be hardy here in Tennessee but so far it’s stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive despite cold temperatures in the mid to lower 20’s. It’s…

October is always a fun time of the year.  Fall festivals are in full swing, the leaves are changing, the weather is more cooperative for gardening, and of course there’s Halloween.  We don’t typically decorate much around here for Halloween.  Part of it is the difficulty of managing a whole lot of decorating with four kids running around and all…

There are many choice of trees to plant and reasons why you might want to plant them. In this post I want to highlight a few ornamental trees that might be worth planting in your landscape. Ornamental trees really could be any kind of tree but typically have great flowers or special and interesting foliage. They usually have more than…

Lately around our house we’ve really been getting into the lettuce from the vegetable garden – in fact quite literally! This red Romaine lettuce called Rouge d’Hiver is a very tasty selection we made from Baker’s Creek. The red coloring is fading as the temperatures are beginning to warm. It won’t be long before this heirloom vegetable begins to bolt…

There are few things a gardener appreciates more than see the positive results of his hard work payoff. Over the years I’ve moved plants, added plants, trimmed plants, propagated plants in various areas and in some places I’m just now beginning to see the results. One such location is my front sidewalk garden. It’s the garden between the house and…

As far as gardening chores go direct sowing squash and zucchini seeds is a very easy task for any home gardener to accomplish. In fact it’s a great one to do with young children who you want to encourage to get outdoors and in the garden. Squash and zucchini seeds are large seeds that are easy for kids to handle….

Tuesday’s task was twofold: purchase and plant a nifty new dogwood and also transplant three migrating arborvitaes from a friend’s garden to my yard. It was a busy afternoon but the mission was accomplished after some hard labor. The dogwood I picked out was a ‘Constellation’ dogwood which is a hybrid of Cornus kousa and Cornus florida. Because of the…

…meal in my garden this year. Blood meal is one of those organic additives that contribute to the quality of your soil. It has a very important nutrient: Nitrogen. Nitrogen is responsible for growing the green leafy growth on your plants. Since blood meal is made form the dried blood of livestock it is an organic product and releases the…

It is full fledged spring around our Middle Tennessee garden.  There is no shortage of work that needs to be done in the form of weeding and mulching on top of a myriad of miscellaneous projects.  For now though let’s just take a few pictures of the garden and we’ll think of that monster spring to-do list a little later….

This time of year more than any other when the cold weather is still stuck upon us we look for any signs of spring. We scour the garden for any hints of warmer weather that will hopefully be on its way soon. We have it lucky right now here in Tennessee. While the snows are burying parts of our country…

Dave, I had a Yoshino Cherry Tree planted in late May and I’m noticing holes in most of the leaves. I am asking you if you know what pest may be attacking it…and if it is under attack, what treatment does it need? The answer to your question is leaf spot disease, not exactly a pest of the insect kind…

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…

I’m definitely no expert in roses.  Recently I saw this rose blooming at my mother-in-law’s home and was curious as to it’s identity. The insides of the bloom are a creamy yellow color while the outside of the petals are a kind of red-peach color. The rose has a cluster of four flowers which make it most likely a type…

Yesterday we attended the Bloom’N Garden Expo at the Williamson County Agricultural Exposition. Center. It was fun to go to an event with so many garden related vendors. I spoke to the people at our local garden club, we visited a booth that was sponsored by a wildlife rescue group, and saw many many plants and other displays at the…

This past weekend while the weather was looking pretty close to awesome we re-made the roof window on my greenhouse shed. The first attempt was leaking in a couple small spots which prompted me to re-think the whole design before the project was too far along. I found out while I was removing the first attempt that if I had…

Yesterday I was walking around the garden when something caught my eye in the ‘Autumn Joy’ sedum… A baby mockingbird nestled behind the buds trying to stay as inconspicuous as possible. I’m glad the mother mockingbird didn’t get too upset that I was nearby!