Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Before the first frost of the fall I took a few cuttings of my Persian Shield (Strobinlanthus dyerianus) to hopefully overwinter it as a houseplant. This was the first year for Persian Shield in my garden and I’ve only seen it at one nursery around so I wanted to be sure I had some for next year in the garden….

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…

I mentioned several weeks ago (a couple months ago) that I was wanting to remodel my front garden. I was mostly speaking of the area directly in front of the house but since then an additional idea popped up. There is a small area around a Bradford pear tree that I envisioned an elongated oval shaped bed. Eventually that ornamental…

Who doesn’t like free seeds? Today I have an opportunity for you to win a variety pack of garden seeds from a new seed retailer: Hometown Seeds! Hometown Seeds is offering to give these seeds to three lucky readers who visit their website and report to me about the most interesting seeds you see. That’s all you have to do!…

Pours, and pours, and pours, and pours, and pours to a total of 6 inches of rain within 48 hours. And there is more to come! I have never seen this much rain in such a short period of time since we moved to this house.  During one period within 45 minutes we received more than 2 inches of rain….

Happy New Year! It’s that time of the year again when everyone thinks of how they can do things better than last year. What can they improve? What should they never, ever do ever again? People call them RESOLUTIONS (insert dramatic music here). While there are certainly things that I can do better and improve on, most of my goals…

This weekend I tackled two major garden tasks that were all about preparing the garden for fall. Task one was planting a few seeds in the vegetable garden. That task was fairly quick and easy to do in my circular raised bed. The other beds are mess still with summer vegetables going everywhere. I need to get out to the…

I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to use my greenhouse lately. There’s just enough complete on the greenhouse construction to tantalize my imagination and since people use greenhouse in so many ways that the options are virtually limitless.I don’t grow orchids or many tropical plants which means the greenhouse won’t be used for them. It’s not ready to use…

Marigolds are beautiful annual flowers that are great to plant in the garden for a number of reasons. They attract pollinators and beneficial insects while at the same time providing benefits for companion planting. Marigolds are extremely easy to grow and you can save the seed from them each year to start again year after year. Here’s more about growing…

Last Father’s Day my present was a little Japanese Maple. It rested in it’s pot for a while and finally was planted in the fall when I had the perfect location for it, the Japanese Maple Garden next to our newly constructed patio. It’s a young garden bed with just a few plantings but in time it will grow as…

An ecologically safe and easy to use weed killer is simply water! Just boil it in your teapot and water the troublesome weed with some scalding hot water. It is non-selective so anything it touches it could kill. It’s effective against most weeds but they may need a second treatment. Be sure to target the root and stem area. Just…

If you remember a couple months ago I spent some time working on a garden remodel for my parents. I had purchased a few plants as gifts for Mother’s Day for my mom and decided that I would redo the garden along their backyard fence. The remodel mostly involved moving plants around, installing a stone block border, and mulching, lots…

Denise from Southern California has another great Fall Color Project post for us!  You might think that her region may not have much fall color to offer, but if you look you’ll find it!  Just take a glance at the muhlenbergia in full bloom, the ginko trees, or the sweetgum and you’ll see the fall color that comes to Southern California….

The holidays are an extremely busy time of the year. We go from Halloween with spooky decorations, to Thanksgiving with autumn harvest styles, then to finally to Christmas. For those who enjoy decorating (and have the storage space for all that stuff) it can be a great deal of fun, but for others who may enjoy the holidays much more…

Spring is in full swing here in Tennessee and that means people everywhere are headed outdoors.  Some to play, some to work, and others to just hang out on the front porch with glass of sweet tea.  That’s what we do here in the south, sweet tea on the front porch.  This week I put together two small and very…

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…

Here are two more great fall color posts for the Garden Blogger fall Color Project. These two posts come to us from the mid-west specifically Chicago, Illinois and Iowa.Mr. McGregor’s Daughter in Chicago, Illinois is observing some really fantastic fall color. The red oaks are competing with the maples for an extraordinary autumn show. Usually the maples win hands down…