Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

We would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!Posting over the next week will be irregular as we celebrate the Christmas season with our family. 

When I’m planning my yard I like to think in what I call Zones. Each zone in itself is a mini-garden. Sometimes the zones have their own micro-climate due to wind exposure, sun exposure, and other environmental conditions like moisture and hardscaping. Over the next couple weeks I’m going to talk about the zones I have planned for my yard….

If you’re looking for a plant that provides fall color in the form of berries as well as late season nourishment for the birds than look no further than the beautyberry (Callicarpa). Our beautyberry that we purchased in the spring is turning a deep purple that will last into the winter. While it may never be listed as the birds…

Maybe it hasn’t quite reached you yet. Maybe the temperatures are still hanging in the 90’s like they are here in Tennessee and the only leaf drop is due to dryness, but let me assure you fall is here! I have evidence, and it exists within the blogs below. Journey with me to see the first colors of fall as…

This past weekend was a big work weekend for me.  Not only did I tackled the paths on the garden but I had a couple other projects in mind to accomplish.  One of which was our Birdbath Garden expansion.  This project is also a small memorial garden for our cat Amber who passed away in December. This is how the…

It that transitional time of the growing season where the spring weeds are coming to an end and the warm season weeds are beginning to arrive.  This time of year is also when many of our warm season crops and plants are coming up too.  Sometimes it isn’t easy to distinguish between a weed and a seedlings planted from seed…

You often hear people mention the phrase the “bones of the garden.” It’s basically used to refer to the garden elements that provide some sort of structure. Many people refer to evergreen plantings as the bones since they add structure and don’t lose their leaves when the weather changes. Structures like arbors and garden shed could also be bones of…

The other day I posted about the next evolution of my garden on its way to becoming a more formalized vegetable garden. Today I’ll show you the layout of what I hope the vegetable garden will eventually become. There are some distinct advantages to the layout changes that I am planning on making that I’ll share with you below the…

My garden is made up of a series of island garden beds. Each one is “designed” (I say that very loosely) to create the pathways that appear in between the gardens. To me a pathway is what really makes garden. A good path let’s you see everything there is to see, leads you down unexpected turns, and really enhances a…

It’s that time of year when the fall blooming plants begin to start their show including Sweet Autumn Clematis (Clematis terniflora). This non-native clematis grows prolifically through the summer and gladly will climb and overtake any structure it meets then will bloom in the fall. I picked up two of these on the discount racks and even though I know…

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…

We made our official announcement this morning about building an arbor for the 48-hour Blog Challenge. An arbor has been in my mind to start the side corridor pathway to our backyard.  Now we could go out and purchase the arbor and stick it up fairly easily but that wasn’t in our plan. We had to go and make the project more…

Today I thought I would show you the before and after since yesterday I teased you on the details of the front porch garden remodel. It’s current state is still classified in the unfinished category but it is well on its way to becoming a welcoming front porch garden. First let me show you the before pictures: The crabapple is…

It’s time for another Fall Color Project Update! For those of you on Blotanical who haven’t seen The Home Garden for a while welcome back! The Feedburner issues with my blog have been resolved finally but unfortunately you’ve missed the announcement of my fall color project. To sum up the project I’m asking bloggers of all venues to do a…

The layering technique is my favorite way of filling new or replenishing already established raised beds. Layering (also called Lasagna Gardening) doesn’t require tilling the soil which can disturb the lives of beneficial microbes and soil dwelling organisms. It also doesn’t destroy the soil structure (assuming you have something better than clay or sand!) Often weed seeds can lurk inside…

Here are two more updates for the Garden Blogger Fall Color Project! I want to take a second to thank everyone who has submitted a post so far. I’ve seen so many interesting places with fantastic colors and scenery that I never would have been able to see in one season! If you haven’t submitted anything yet don’t worry about…

Despite recent events at the White House the security of my greenhouse shed just won’t ever be as good as that of the Secret service. Since it is also a shed and will be housing my lawnmowers, weedeater, various garden tools, hoses, and all the plants I hope to propagate I need something to keep people out. Tools don’t walk…

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,…