Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Healthy potato plants About a month before the last frost date is the best planting time for potatoes in my zone 7b garden. That starts the planting season for potatoes here in Tennessee in Mid March. If you need a better guide than that think of St. Patrick’s Day and plan around it within a few days. Potatoes are not…

My fall garden is much less impressive than the trees that surround us. In fact if you were to take away the trees little else would be remaining with any significant color. There are a few things that defeat my previous statement in our garden but I see a definite need for improvement in the fall color area. When I…

Well it had to happen. More insects have attacked the plants in my garden. My second year hollyhocks are the lastest victims of an insect known as the cabbage looper. Eventhough their name is cabbage looper that doesn’t mean they will stop there. They like all sorts plants in the crucifer group like broccoli, collards, kale, and cauliflower as well…

Lately I’ve been working on getting everything up and running with my vegetable garden. I followed the raised bed layout I made and filled the beds several weeks ago. I’ve already planted lettuce, tomatoes, marigolds, peppers, beans, cucumbers, watermelon, catmint, and squash. In the picture to the right you can see the little cucumber sprouts popping up through the soil….

Newly formed Oak Leaf Hydrangea leaves stretch skyward as if they were hands imploring the coming cold temperatures to be gentle.

Seen here is one plant I wish had the ideal location for it to grow. Ideal location you ask? OK maybe I’m putting words in your head but let me add an image too. Think shade, think moist, think well drained, think shade garden. I don’t have that place…yet. This little plant was planted in a nearly ideal location in…

Tonight the weather people are expecting our first hard freeze in Tennessee. It will then officially end the growing season! This is not entirely true though. The plants are still growing roots. Plants planted now will grow strong root systems though the winter and should have great foliar growth in the spring. Here are some tips on what to do…

I’ve seen many posts around the garden blogosphere about signature plants. That’s a hard one for me because there are so many plants I like and every year I find a new one that seems to be the best of the best. Picking one plant from the hundreds of thousands of possibilities really seems futile. So rather than talk about…

One major reason many of us garden is to enjoy seeing wildlife. I think it’s pretty rare to find a gardener who doesn’t also enjoy a little bird watching. Birds can be great to have around the garden as well. Kingsyard recently sent me a squirrel proof bird feeder and a bluebird house to put up in my garden. I…

This post may be a little late in coming but I thought I would talk about how I built my raised beds for my vegetable garden. If you you are interested in learning about the advantages of gardening in raised beds be sure check out my post: The Benefits of Gardening in Raised Beds. This spring I built two large…

The other day I was contacted by the folks at Workman Publishing. They had a new book that they wanted someone to look at so I said I’d be happy to check it out. The book is The Garden Primer: Second Edition by Barbara Damrosch. Some of you may be familiar with the original version of this gardening manual that…

It’s that time of year where the daylilies are becoming the showoffs of the garden. Daylilies (Hemerocallis) area very common collectable perennial here in the south. They propagate very easily through division and are a prime starter plant for people interested in learning how to hybridize plants. Here’s a look at a little of what is blooming in our garden…

Here’s another idea I had for my herb garden. I’ve been planning my vegetable garden with a shrub/perennial ring around it. This herb corridor would lead up to a small entry gate going into the garden area. The beginning of the corridor would start close to our future patio (a project for later this year). The herb garden would have…

Over the years I’ve done several vegetable garden layouts for my garden. I’ve always tried to make improvements to the vegetable garden. My goal is to make it more efficient for growing yet still aesthetically pleasing and fun to be in. This year however isn’t just an adjustment, it’s a whole new garden! We moved into our new house in…

Recently I took a single cutting from an Oak Leaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia). Oak leaf hydrangeas are beautiful native plants with tall flower panicles. They are a planting choice that I highly recommend. They are more difficult to propagate than a Hydrangea macrophylla but they are definitely plant that a gardener can root from a cutting to make more plants!…

I’ve always been a big fan of solar lighting.  I like the convenience of adding light where I want it in the garden without having to wire in electrical lines.  I also like how solar energy is collected during the day and distributed later when it is needed without using resources from the power grid.  Solar energy is a very…

The other day I just happened to have some extra stone that I had bought a few weeks ago on a large palette with some miscellaneous landscaping supplies. I thought that a dry creek bed might look better than the cheap looking plastic tube that was attached to the end of the downspout so I started putting one together using…

There is a trend emerging, a very good trend, toward homeowners filling their garden with edible plantings. Homeowners are trading out ornamental plants for the practical plants that produce food and nourishment for themselves.  How does a gardener begin with changing their landscape into a practical edible garden? You might be surprised. Try creating your “foodscape” by starting at the…