Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

I thought I would put together a catch up post for anyone who might have missed the past Garden Blogger Assignments. You are welcome to write about any of the past assignments over the last several weeks. I won’t be putting together a new assignment until next Sunday so please enjoy taking a look back at what some of the…

You don’t need much space to propagate plants. In fact you can propagate a bunch of plants in some very small spaces like in the containers in the picture. Together I have 5 different kinds of plants ready for rooting including red twig dogwood, rhododendron, azalea, Purple Leaf Plum Propagation, Japanese maple, and Yoshino cherry. To me it’s amazing that…

Last week I put together another downspout dry creek bed to help escort the water away from the house foundation. We don’t really have any issues with too much moisture around the house but it’s better to think preemptively and solve those dilemmas before problems arise. Besides this is such an easy project to do that it can be started…

I’ve made no secret about it but maples are without a doubt my favorite shade tree. Maples offer shade in the summer, feed wildlife with their samaras, and are a feast for the eyes in the fall. Reds, yellows, and oranges tend to be the predominate colors and they set the fall landscape on fire! All the gold colored maple…

There’s no rhyme or reason to the pictures in this post. It’s all random and just for fun! Or does saying that give it a theme or a reason? Hmm…. Verbena bonairensis beginning the process of reseeding in the self-sowing garden. Celosia in the reseeding garden! The front garden on October. I’ve noticed that this year there is a definite…

One of the more interesting materials to use in the garden is stone. It comes in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and forms from small landscape gravel to river stones and large stone pavers. Its uses in the garden are nearly endless. Gravel can be used for patios, pathways, and for mulch. Medium and larger stones can be used for…

Another second of the month has arrived and it’s time for an update on my seeds for the 2011 GROW project! Here’s the Italian Cameo Basil – I have it planted in a container but I suspect the soil mix is too heavy for the basil. Its growth has been fairly limited over the last month and I may need…

This time of year I spend some time looking back at old photos from the garden. It’s fun to see how stuff looked back when it was growing, when leaves were on the trees, and at the most a cold wind only brought you down into the 80’s on the old thermometer. So if you’re like me and can’t wait…

One of the greatest places to find fall color is on the campuses of our country’s learning institutions. Each of these beacons of knowledge are aesthetically landscaped to entice new students to come and to give the students and faculty that attend a sense of nature to enhance their education. This idea is alive at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. At…

Over the years I’ve had the pleasure to test out products from Troy-Bilt. Overall I’ve been very impressed with the quality and the power that they have produced for lawn equipment. Five years later years I still zip around and mow my 1.5 acre yard with the RZT (0 Turn Mower) and have really enjoyed that fact that I never…

As our gardening season draws to a close I thought I’d update you on the progress of some cuttings and how they look now. First up is an echinacea that was a propagation experiment. I took basal stem cuttings (which come from the crown of the root) in the spring. Once it rooted I planted it in our front sidewalk…

What can I say really? It’s January and my vegetable garden is awfully sad. The winter air has been colder than Tennessee cold should be.  If I were by myself I might be brave enough to get outdoors but bringing my almost 7 month old son outdoors during the day really isn’t an option. He’ll get his fill of gardening…

This week I actually found myself outdoors sowing seeds directly into the soil of my garden. Thanks to wonderful Tennessee weather, where you can count on a few days of warm even in February, we’re able to plant a few cool season crops this month. So far in the vegetable garden I’ve planted: Lettuce – two varieties Little Gem, and…

Aggravations are sure to enter into everyone’s lives at some time or another and when we think of aggravations as a part gardening a whole lot of subjects arise! In fact this list of 5 gardening aggravations that I’m about to share with you could extend well beyond the necessary 5 items for a Friday Fives post.  It could even…

It’s been a while since I’ve written about our vegetable garden so I thought the end of April would be a good time for an update!  There are a few disappointments but overall most of the garden is right on track.  We’ve used raised beds for several years now but most of them have disintegrated.  I’ve replaced some with concrete…

You may have noticed that the daily blogging has slowed down a little bit on weekends. It’s been for a very good reason: The Patio Project. My commenting on other blogs has suffered as well but everything should pick up once the final touches have been made on the backyard remodel. It’s become more than a patio project and really…

Yesterday I posted an enhanced photo of a flower from my garden and asked readers to try to identify it. I disguised it a little by removing the color and cropping and zooming the picture. I though it was a neat way to look at one of my favorite plants in the garden, the coneflower! This particular one was Echinacea…

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…