Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

I’m a huge hosta fan. I wouldn’t call myself a collector but I really enjoy how well hostas thrive with very little need for attention. Hostas certainly have a few issues but to me they are a very easy going plant to grow in the garden. There are so many varieties of hosta available with all kinds of variegation that…

There are few fall performers more majestic than the beautyberry.  My beautyberry is Callicarpa dichtoma ‘Early Amethyst’ and is a native of Asia.  It’s a beautiful shrub with tiny white flowers in the summer that become loaded with clusters of purple berries in the fall.  When I say loaded, I mean loaded! The berries last throughout the fall and typically…

Recently while upsizing my tomato seedlings into larger pots I needed some plant labels. Normally I will use the cut up slats of mini-blinds. I have a few sets I’ve collected over the years just for this purpose but I actually didn’t have them here at our current house. They were back over at the old house waiting to be…

‘Black Dragon’ cryptomeria (Cryptomeria japonica, USDA zones 6-9) is a beautiful evergreen tree for the garden. The foliage is a dark green with some twisting shapes that create an unusually contorted figure. It’s an amazing evergreen specimen for Japanese gardens or as focal points. This past spring I took some cuttings of our cryptomeria and this winter I found that…

This post is about two of my favorite vegetable garden plants: tomatoes and sugar snap peas! Both are delicious right from the garden and I have both growing in my home and garden! The snap peas are about 6 inches tall at this point. The pea growth has been slowed some by the cool temperatures.  Even though sugar snap peas…

Sweet gum trees (Liquidambar styraciflua) are beautiful trees and are great to have around for wildlife. The seeds of the sweet gum tree are eaten by small mammals like squirrels and chipmunks as well as a number of birds including finches, ducks, quail, chickadees, sparrows, towhees, and Carolina wrens. With all that wildlife enjoying the sweetgum trees I can easily…

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…

Our first group of irises has just started to bloom.  The iris blooms are coming much later than last year due to the cold temperatures that have pushed everything back about nearly a month.  There are a just a couple types of iris here in my garden including the tall bearded irises, the Dutch irises, and some Siberian irises like…

Several years before we had a house with a little land we had to garden on our back porch. Friends and people I worked with thought we were crazy but it really makes a lot of sense. For small spaces gardening in pots is an excellent way to garden. Many vegetables come in varieties that are perfect for pots due…

Since we were gone for a few days one of the first things I did was check the vegetable garden’s progress. Things are shaping up even if it is a bit unkempt. The tomatoes need tied off again. I’m using bamboo stakes and twine to tie off the plants as they grow. I could easily have used store bought tomato…

This time of year is always very special. The leaves are coming out on all the trees and the barren treeline in the backyard becomes a lush forest of greenery.  The treeline is filled with maples, tulip poplars, sassafras and small variety of other trees.

Before this weekend I made a big list on what I wanted to accomplish and one of those tasks was finishing the siding on the greenhouse shed. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to complete it but I did manage to complete some large and tricky areas. When it comes to projects and time my ideas are always bigger than…

My thoughts on gardening in 2020 2020 has been a crazy year so far hasn’t it? On the positive side it has introduced a host of new gardeners to the fun of home gardening. People these days are looking for ways to spend their time at home and maybe participate in a healthy activity that can offset some expenses with…

As always I’m excited to get new plants through plant propagation and I’m pretty excited to add 5 new dwarf arborvitae to the collection!  I bought the ‘Little Giant’ arborvitae (Thuja occindentalis) last fall on the discount rack and planted two of them in the birdbath garden on either side of the pathway to the bench spot.  The idea was…

My daughter and I recently did a little project. We took materials that were lying around the house and put together a mini-seed starting greenhouse. It was a simple and easy project to work on with my 3 and a half year old daughter. Read on to see what we did.Materials: Paper roll tubes, a rectangular tin foil pan, a…

I know, it’s early to start seed but I have a plan and just couldn’t resist. Inside of a walk-in closet I put up a grow light and suspended it about 12-14 inches above the seed starting spot. The lights are 48″ fluorescent shop lights that I used last year to start my seedlings. I even made a little light…

They finally came! My experiment with Arbor Day has begun. Earlier in the year I ordered several trees from the National Arbor Day Society. I also got a few free trees with my order. I know many people have had mixed results when ordering from Arbor Day. They either have trees that don’t make it through the winter, receive dead…

Our family would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!