Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

It’s always fun to go back and look at the year. It helps to examine what went well or what didn’t. Usually I end the year with a post on how my garden projects went but this year I thought I would mention what the top posts on Growing The Home Garden were for 2013.  Once our newest arrival came…

Please ignore the mess of bricks and leftover lumber lying on the floor at the bottom of this picture. Instead focus on the cabinets! Family friends were cleaning out their basement and passed on quite a few pieces of lumber and odds and ends they thought could be reused. The cabinets came along for the ride too. With a little…

Several weeks ago I told you of a little dappled willow pruning experiment I tried at my in-laws home.  Before I show you the results let me quickly revisit some characteristics of dappled willows and why I like these shrubs. About Dappled Willows: Japanese dappled willows or (Salix integra ‘Nishiki’) are shrub willows that will quickly grow between 10-12 feet…

Today was a fantastic day to be outdoors, and of course for most of the time being outdoors means I’m planting something! Today I planted three azaleas into one of my gardens courtesy of Monrovia. Monrovia gave me an opportunity to try out these ‘Savannah Sunset’ azaleas in my garden. ‘Savannah Sunset’ is a part of Monrovia’s Bloom N’ Again…

If you’re like me you’re a sucker for phlox in the spring time. I’ve seen photos of phlox completely covering hillsides and it looks just like a painting, wouldn’t it be cool to mimic that idea in your own garden? Maybe just on a small scale though because once the phlox blooms in the spring all you see is green…

Welcome to completely random gardening. For this post I had a hodgepodge of things to update you on that really can’t be grouped into any kind of category for one single post to talk about. So we’ll just have to talk a little bit about everything!The Greenhouse ProjectI managed to do a little digging on the greenhouse foundation yesterday. I…

Yesterday I fought the wind and dug a few more holes in our front garage/sidewalk garden. Its not much to look at now all bedraggled from the frost. Our perennials have said “good night” and only a few small shrubs look of any account, but in this bed I planted 60 tulips. I didn’t use a special power drill with…

 For More Say Nothin’ Saturday visit TC!

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…

I find Garden Tours fun to put together. It’s an opportunity incessantly talk about plants, plans, and ideas and that is one of my favorite things to do! I put together a garden tour of our current garden on YouTube which you can watch down below. To summarize the year so far we moved in November of 2023 to our…

Emily Rose who gardens and blogs in the Chattanooga area has a very picturesque setting for her fall colors!  What could be better than fall colors reflected in a pond?  Oaks, maples, and other trees all offer up a piece of East Tennessee fall color.  Stop by and check out Emily’s fall color pictures at her blog!

Today we worked a little more on the greenhouse project and managed to get another milestone accomplished: the bracing. Unfortunately due to the end of daylight savings time darkness descended too quickly for me to snap some good photos. Besides braces aren’t very interesting, just functional. We put braces on the joists that connect them to the rafters, braces on…

Earlier this week we had a light frost which meant it was time to collect the basil leaves! Without any real hope of the basil leaves surviving the sub 32 degree temperatures I gathered as much as I could. I brought the leaves inside and made pesto. The 6 cups of loosely packed basil I gathered ended up making only…

Great garden books are an awesome resource for any gardener. They become a reference that gardeners can go back to over and a over again to fill in the blanks or come up with new ideas. The New Southern Living Garden Book is just that, a great resource book for southern gardeners. I was sent a copy for review recently…

Here is Part 9 of The Home Garden’s weekly series about gardening on a budget.Plant propagation, at last, my favorite subject! I was saving the plant propagation post for the last few segments of this series on gardening cheap. Plant propagation is one of the most inexpensive ways to make more plants and expand your gardens. There are several methods…

Recently I was asked to take a look at some reusable plant tags from the Allsop Home & Garden company. The idea sounded pretty neat – plant tags that can be written on, washed off, and then reused. They would make great markers for herb gardens or vegetable gardens. In the mail I received six plant tags and six stakes….

What’s not to like about moss? It’s green, soft, fuzzy, grows well in shade, and is as resilient as they come! While gathering rocks over the weekend I stumbled upon (not literally) loads of mossy cover rocks.  This little ground covering plant attaches itself and needs no soil.  It gathers its nutrients from the air and requires good moisture to…

In all our gardens we start small and add plants as we go. If you look back the the birdbath garden you can see what I mean.  What started with a birdbath and five small plants has slowly turned into a medium size garden area with about 15 different plants. The winter garden will be no different! With economics being…