Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

It’s that time of year again, time to think about spring! Yes, I said that right. Spring! Fall is almost here but if you want to maximize the potential of your garden next year fall is the best time to get some work done. The autumn leaves will be changing soon and now is the best time to get some…

You may not now this but there is a divine influence on the gardening world.  It is said that: When a gardener properly takes care of his lawn, allowing it to grow high, only cutting a third at a time, and takes care not to poison the earth with unnecessary fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides that a sign will be given…

Like the neighbor’s cat holding onto our railing, many of the maples have decided to hold onto their leaves, at least for a while longer. Not all of them of course, the reds lost their leaves several days ago. The sycamore trees still have some dead leaves hanging onto their branches. Their leaves will remain there for an indefinite period…

…SNOW! Yep the southern Blizzard of 2011 got us pretty good this time. We have somewhere around 4-5 inches of snow on the ground. Here are a few pictures of our winter wonderland! Snow on the Arbor Snow on the Blue Garden Shed Snow on the butterfly bush Snow on the eastern cedar Snow on a hemlock Snow on a…

It’s the week of the Nashville Lawn and Garden Show 2017 (Plant a Forest:  Gardening for the Future)! As a harbinger of spring the Nashville Lawn and Garden show happens every year at the Nashville Fairgrounds. It starts this Thursday (March 2nd) and continues through Sunday (March 5th). At the show you can expect to find live gardens, free lectures,…

I wrote a short update post on the garden shed. It’s progressing, albeit slowly due to other gardening tasks that need attention. I do need some paint color suggestions so if you have ideas feel free to comment!

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…

Once you have your seedlings growing strong and you’ve properly hardened them off (more on that next week) it is time to plant your seedlings in the garden.  But where should you plant them?  It may seem like a given that you’ll just go out and stick them in a hole and watch them grow, but it’s not always that…

I wrote in my last post about the plant benches I was working on for the garden shed and this weekend I was able to finish installing the coated wire shelf tops. Now I can add plants in to overwinter, hardwood cuttings for rooting over the winter, or maybe even start seeds in the early spring.Each shelf is covered with…

THis first of the irises to bloom this year are the reblooming white irises we have in the Japanese maple garden. It’s a small garden just to one side of our patio that ,of course, has a Japanese maple! It was a gift a few years ago to me for Father’s Day. The reblooming white irises came home with me…

Imagine my anguish when the other day I walked around the yard and saw strips of bark peeled off the trees due to the damaging effects of the deer. These furry four-legged creatures are so majestic to watch and observe as they scamper through the fields. The problem is our yard isn’t a field! You probably remember my post the…

Among the many chores I mentioned in my last post was the toppling of several large trees. There were three trees in that were dead and needed removal. At some point recently one of the branches of the trees fell and speared the ground below to a depth of 6-8 inches. To keep the trees in such a state in…

It seems that we are not the only one’s enjoying our side garden entry arbor. This little ruby throated hummingbird seems quite fond of our nifty native honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) climbing up the side of the project. Honeysuckle is one of my favorite vines to attract hummingbirds. The arbor was part of a Better Homes & Gardens Challenge where we…

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…

Can you identify this plant? We shot this shrub in California in June of 2005 . It was at the entrance of an airplane museum at Edward’s Air Force Base.

As far as gardening chores go direct sowing squash and zucchini seeds is a very easy task for any home gardener to accomplish. In fact it’s a great one to do with young children who you want to encourage to get outdoors and in the garden. Squash and zucchini seeds are large seeds that are easy for kids to handle….

Salvia is one of my favorite perennials to propagate and spring and summer are the best times to do root cuttings of salvia from stem tip cuttings. Pretty soon our gardens will be filled with salvia blooms and you’ll see why I like them so much. I’ll post a picture at the bottom of this post if you’re curious! The…

I think one of the most important things to consider when planning out the gardens in your landscape is how it all fits together. One of the best ways I’ve tried to figure that out is by considering my vantage points. A vantage point is just a fancy way of saying a good place to look at the garden! My…