Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

For those of us who garden in the summertime almost exclusively for the purpose of tasting that juicy red perfect tomato from the vegetable garden there’s a pretty good resource for you. It’s an Ebook called How to Grow Juicy Tasty Tomatoes written by Lucia Grimmer and Annette Welsford. Together the two tomato aficionados have assembled a handy resource for…

Here are a few plant nurseries that you may find useful. But first a little advice on buying plants from nurseries:Always do plenty of research before buying any plant to make sure it will do well in your garden. Check for light requirements, water needs, soil types, recommend fertilizer regimens, and pest and disease issues. Also be aware that mail…

This time of year when the weather is inhospitable I take a look back through the pictures I’ve taken and informally review the previous year. That’s one great advantage when you blog, you have a record of most things and photographs of almost everything else! Here’s a picture from September just outside our vegetable garden. In the fuzzy foreground is…

Just one really neat sight I saw this weekend was the monarch sipping nectar from the milkweed (Asclepias syriaca). Milkweed is the host plant for the monarch butterflies which serves a very important role in the life of the fluttering favorites of backyard butterflies. Milkweed contains a chemical called glycosides which get consumed by the monarch caterpillars (see more here…

The rain today had a couple of small openings for some sunshine to come through. It always seems that March has the most rainbows, what do you think?

This past weekend I put together a small corner shade garden. We have a garden spot on one side of our house that only receives 3-4 hours of morning sun per day. We thought that the spot would be a perfect candidate for a shade garden. When I think of shade gardens I think of foliage. Colorful flowers don’t come…

This post is a little bit of a Hodge-podge of topics. A conglomeration of a couple of interesting things and one maybe no so much for you (but something I can whine warn you about!) Sunrise This morning we had a gorgeous sunrise that highlighted the early morning clouds.  I snapped I picture from our upstairs bathroom window. It’s a…

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…

Here’s a quick look at my garden from the weekend! The ‘Diablo’ ninebark is in bloom.  It has beautiful purple-copper hued leaves and flowers with these clusters of white flowers each spring. In the vegetable garden the lettuce is coming along – finally.  It’s taken a while this year to get some good germination.  I think the weather fluctuations have…

I have been known to surf through the local big box home improvement store garden center for discount plants. I found all sorts of mums earlier in the fall for $0.50 each. All they needed was a little trimming and dead heading and they were good as new.I’ve found Viburnums and Russian Sage this way also!Today I found a 10-12…

Unique berry producing plants are always welcome in my garden. What do I mean by unique? I’m glad you asked! If you didn’t ask then bear with me anyway. To me a unique berry plant is one that may not be in everyone’s landscape. Plants that look spectacular because of the berries and the berries aren’t just an added bonus….

This spring has brought us a ton of rain but has also made things really nice for flowering. There are so many things in bloom right now that I may have to save a few for a future post. It’s time to get started then! To the left is out tulip poplar tree in bloom. Catmint ‘Walker’s Low’ is one…

Do you say “Do you feel lucky, punk?” when you stare down weeds while wielding a bottle of herbicide? Do you cringe when you hear crabgrass? Then don’t forget that this coming Wednesday July 29th is Worst Weed Wednesday where you get to rant all you want about the worst possible garden invaders to your yard! For more details check…

Red Spider Lily that is!  This Saturday I was mowing and passed by one of the garden beds on my riding mower when this bright red flower jumped out at me.  Did it really jump?  Nope but one day it wasn’t there and now here it is. Spider lilies (Lycoris radiata) are also called a variety of names like Naked…

This past weekend the weather was perfect for what else? Gardening! I spent most of my time outdoors getting the garden ready for the growing season. There’s always a lot to do in the spring to prepare the garden for a great year. The most frustrating thing about this weekend was my riding mower battery. When I went to start…

Fall color is one of the main reasons I garden. If you followed this website for a while you may remember the Fall Color project I hosted where Garden Bloggers from all over posted about their fall color and we shared our autumn experiences. For me few trees have more outstanding fall color than the maple. Red maples and Sugar…

Last year I told you about the Japanese maples that grew naturally from underneath a tree at my parent’s house. I over wintered young trees in my garden shed (see the April Video update) and have been taking care of them here in our garden. The other day I transferred the Japanese maple seedlings from the shed because it was…

I’m amazed this year by the blooms I actually have in the garden. Maybe it was the warm snap, or maybe we’ll be lucky enough to have some great blooms each and every February. My feature plant today is one that comes every spring much to the chagrin of the lawn lover.  Tiny purple flowers bloom enmass across yards all…