Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Kids in the garden are funny creatures. Although your kids may be too young to do many of the garden chores that need done it’s important to get them out there not only to learn but to get fresh air. Gardening is an invaluable educational tool because children can learn how to do things, procedures, why things are done a…

This week marked the return of warm temperatures to Tennessee. Last Sunday was beautiful, the kind of day you can wear short sleeve shirts and start thinking about grilling out. Monday was even better then the rains came but the warmth was still there. This weekend brings us to a little cold front that tagged along with the rains or…

Our unusually spring like fall weather has encouraged quite a few plants to either continue blooming longer than usual or bloom at a very unusual time!  I went out this morning and took a few pictures of what’s blooming in our Tennessee garden as a result of those 70 degree days we’ve had. Three different varieties of Achillea millifolium are…

This week has been an interesting one! I’m amazed and astounded by the sheer number of comments generated for the compost bin giveaway from Clean Air Gardening. At the cut-off time for the drawing there were 120 valid entries (Nancy’s, of Leaping Greenly, doesn’t count since she’s Canadian but I always appreciate her comments!). Here’s how the drawing worked: I…

The siding work on the two gables for the garden shed have been completed! It’s really starting to come together. I can’t wait to get in there and start working on something other than the building!

It was springtime in 1999. The day was warm and the windows were open in my college apartment.  I was in my upstairs bedroom reading a book and had left the backdoor open to create a cross flow of air through the apartment.  Motion in my bedroom door caught my eye and the little tortoiseshell colored cat was walking into…

Who is this peaking up from the mulch in my garden? Give me your best guess! You may have some of these coming up in your garden too. I’ll show pictures as it grows for you to find out if your guess is correct.Here is the update. I bet you can guess it now. The variegated green leaves are pushing…

One of the things I love to do, but often don’t have enough time to do, is visit gardens. I like seeing what ideas other gardeners have had and taking a bit of their creativity back to my garden. We recently visited a farm and picked some pumpkins for the fall. While a farm and garden can be vastly different…

Thank you for stopping by to see what’s blooming here in TN during September. Also thanks to Carol for hosting Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day each month. Before you look at the pictures below I want to invite you to participate in the Fall Color Project for 2010. Click on the link to see the information about the Fall Color Project….

Today more than many others I felt the cold of winter beginning to enter our Tennessee garden. The weather has been mild all throughout November and as December approaches noticeable changes are entering my consciousness. Overcast skies seem more prevalent than the sunny days we’ve been fortunate to enjoy, colder air seems to last here longer than the pleasant air….

Last weekend I brought home a few things from my in-laws house. I’m very fortunate to be able to take cuttings of anything they have around or to be able to gather rocks for edging in our garden. So what did I bring home last weekend? I’ve already told you about one thing, the pyracantha cuttings. I took 14 cuttings…

I mention yesterday that I would share a couple more things with you about the Fall Color Project 2012 so today here are they are! The first news to share today is that there is a prize available for the participants.  All you have to do to win the prize is to join in the Fall Color Project between now…

This winter has been bitterly cruel.  Not bitterly cold, just bitterly cruel.  It’s tempted us into believing that spring was almost here, then the ground hog predicted 6 more weeks of winter..and we laughed. The weather was warm and what do groundhogs really know about the weather?  Do they have live Doppler radar in buried in their dens?  I don’t…

Sometimes even getting the little things done in the garden can make you feel like you’ve accomplished something worthwhile. Today since I still couldn’t really get to work on the big garden chores I settled for getting a few little garden chores accomplished.By far the biggest garden task was really a fall yard maintenance one, overseeding the lawn. I overseed…

We managed to accomplish a little more on the greenhouse project this week. We ran into a small roadblock when we botched putting together the roofline and had to take the rafters down to reattach them to the center beam. I was trying to do things in a simple and easy way which turned out to be complicated and difficult,…

With all the nasty but necessary weather we’ve been having lately it’s been hard to get out in the garden to work. What’s a gardener to do? Talk about the seedlings growing inside! Today I’m going to give you an update on how I am growing heucheras from seed. The largest of my heuchera seedlings is still tiny but I’m…

Wilted ‘Oranges and Lemons’ Gaillardia As most of you already know the weather here has been abysmal. Temperatures have been in the mid to upper 90’s frequently with little rain to cool things off or water the plants. In most cases I’ve let the plants fend for themselves. Many are drought resistant/tolerant and should come out OK in the end…

Hummingbirds are one of those subjects that are a challenge to photograph in flight. The best way I’ve found to get a good shot of a hummingbird is simply to take a whole bunch of pictures. My only other tip is to stake out the bird feeders and wait for that perfect shot while taking multiple pictures per second. The…