Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

My recent fascination with the snowy owl visiting our town isn’t something new, I’ve always been interested in birds and wildlife. Gardening and nature to me are so closely woven together in the tapestry of life that you don’t get one without the other, and if you do you’re doing something wrong. Nature in all it’s glory ultimately controls what…

…digging the rain garden. I looked back at the January 12, 2008 post to see what I wrote about one year ago. During that week I was heavily entrenched (forgive the pun) in digging the rain garden. Today I’m very pleased with how well it functions. This January we’ve had at least 3 inches of rain so far, possibly more,…

Last year I came up with a layout for our vegetable garden that I later decided wasn’t as effective as I hoped. This year I made a better raised bed layout that focused more on the convenience of the gardener and it is working great! The central path makes getting around a breeze and the smaller paths around each bed…

Forgive the slightly blurry picture of this zebra swallowtail butterfly. It refused to hold still for it’s photo! Recently while out exploring I noticed a butterfly floating about. It was a zebra swallowtail butterfly which is the Tennessee state butterfly. I’ve seen them before and so I knew a little about them including one fact in particular, their favorite host…

Yet again I could not resist the urge to look for discount plants, and I found some! I picked up three more ‘East Friesland’ salvias, three ‘Caradonna’ salvias, another viburnum, and two ‘Patriot’ hostas. My total for these nine forlorn plants was $8.74 after taxes. The salvias were all in great shape for being on a discount rack. The hosta…

The 20-Minute Gardener on Amazon A couple weeks ago I was sent a review copy of the 20-Minute Gardener from Sunset Books.  The idea behind the book is very intriguing: 20 minutes of gardening each day for a great garden.  You may have heard this concept before.  The idea is simple.  If you do a little bit in your garden each…

One little seed starting trick I have in my bag of gardening tricks is to start seeds in plastic cup greenhouses!  I shared a picture of seed starting in my mini-greenhouses about 2 weeks ago on my Facebook page and I thought today I would share with you the progress of the seedlings. Plastic cups are an easy and effective…

I planted these daffodils late last fall. I found them after they went on sale in December and planted them soon after. They are just now blooming while all the other daffodils are fading which is pretty neat! I may plant a few late daffodils each year to achieve the same effect!

It won’t be long now until we get to pick our first crop of strawberries from the garden. These were all transplants from the “L” shaped raised bed layout from last year and have flourished in their new bed. The foliage is growing strong and tall and runners are starting to come out all over place, but what is exciting…

October is always a fun time of the year.  Fall festivals are in full swing, the leaves are changing, the weather is more cooperative for gardening, and of course there’s Halloween.  We don’t typically decorate much around here for Halloween.  Part of it is the difficulty of managing a whole lot of decorating with four kids running around and all…

Welcome to my bone dry September garden for Wildflower Wednesday! We have an assortment of fall blooming flower pictures to share. You really don’t need a reason other than their beauty to plant wildflowers but the fact that so many of them require little to no care during our current weather conditions is a great bonus. To have something that…

Is there a flower more typical of fall than mums?  Probably not!  There are definitely some flowers worthy of autumnal appreciation but the mum is the most common one you’ll find this time of year.  I put together a little project for Lowe’s Creative Ideas that uses mums and reuses my dad’s old wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrow planter project was easy…

I’m a huge hosta fan. I wouldn’t call myself a collector but I really enjoy how well hostas thrive with very little need for attention. Hostas certainly have a few issues but to me they are a very easy going plant to grow in the garden. There are so many varieties of hosta available with all kinds of variegation that…

Despite what the weather may lead us to believe Spring will arrive soon. Maybe it will help us believe it if we repeat that phrase: Spring will arrive soon! (Repeat as needed) It’s March and during March we can expect a number of tumultuous and turbulent weather systems that will toy with our psyche. Have faith gardeners because spring and the gardening…

The leaves are still fresh on my ‘Forest Pansy’ Redbud but you can already see why I picked it as a focal point for our arbor project. My idea was to place the beautiful purple foliage of the redbud where you can view it through the arbor. That can’t be done from all perspectives but as the tree grows larger…

Imagine my puzzlement when I glanced at one of my two spireas and saw empty branches. This was a plant that was flushing out with its reddish amber to golden leaves just a couple days ago. The leaves around the tips were completely intact but some of the stems were nearly naked. What caused this damage? Aphids! What do Aphids…

This time of year is always very special. The leaves are coming out on all the trees and the barren treeline in the backyard becomes a lush forest of greenery.  The treeline is filled with maples, tulip poplars, sassafras and small variety of other trees.

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!…