Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Today we had a light snow drop down over our gardens in Tennessee.  It isn’t the craziest thing to happen but it’s not something that gardeners enjoy.  We would much rather have the sunny and warm days that spring is known for!  Here’s our garden after a light dusting. Grape hyacinths.  Snow around the flower covered Bradford Pear tree.  …

A little more guessing fun on this first day of winter! Do you know this evergreen tree with the black berries? I’ll give you a hint – I’ve written about it before! No links – that would be too easy! No rhymes either – that would be too cheesy! Oops… Yesterday’s post “What Seeds are We?” were the  seeds of the…

As the summer fades and cooler temperatures arrive the play of the sunlight in the mist and the trees can bring a very picturesque scene. This photo was taken one early October morning from our back deck.

It won’t be long before the warm weather approaches (or at least I keep telling myself this) and gardening begins for the 2009 season in earnest.  One of the projects I have planned this season is the self sowing garden.  A self sowing garden is pretty self explanatory, it has plants that seed themselves year after year without much attention…

Summertime in Tennessee will be HOT. No doubt about it! We frequently get into the upper 90’s and sometimes it can last for several days in a row. You need a plan for your garden to deal with the hot temperatures. Most warm season plants that you grow will do fine with a few basic techniques for dealing with the…

Last weekend I brought home a few things from my in-laws house. I’m very fortunate to be able to take cuttings of anything they have around or to be able to gather rocks for edging in our garden. So what did I bring home last weekend? I’ve already told you about one thing, the pyracantha cuttings. I took 14 cuttings…

Fads come and go and garden fads do the same thing.  What I like today might be different in 10 years, 5 years, or even 1 year!  But for this Friday Five post I thought I’d tell you a little about the plants I really like right now.  While this list contains some specific plants it also contains a types…

Here’s another question for another Sunday! What are the best ornamental grasses in your garden? Ornamental grasses are great plants to use whether as a background or as a feature plant. There are all kinds of ornamental grasses to choose from; some are native and some exotic. In our garden we only have two varieties but I hope to add…

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!

The economy is still in disarray and all of us are trying to find ways to do things cheaper and more efficiently even in the garden.  Fortunately gardeners are experts at finding ways to be cheap.  Let’s look at some easy to do ideas that can help keep your garden budget as low as it can go! 5 Money saving…

With all the nasty but necessary weather we’ve been having lately it’s been hard to get out in the garden to work. What’s a gardener to do? Talk about the seedlings growing inside! Today I’m going to give you an update on how I am growing heucheras from seed. The largest of my heuchera seedlings is still tiny but I’m…

For the last part of my Winter Garden series I have a special treat planned. I arranged for snow to fall upon Middle Tennessee so I could illustrate how great a winter garden looks! OK, of course I’m joking but snow is very cool to look at on the garden (please forgive the pun). The weather forecast called for chances…

Last week I was out of town teaching and was forced to come home early due to a awful case of food poisoning (watch out for those buffets!) When Saturday rolled around my outdoor work plans were drastically changed. I had planned on getting some mulch on a few spots but just couldn’t stand being in the heat and humidity…

I did some collecting yesterday in the cold drizzling rain. Some friends of my parents wanted to get rid of a pile of wood that used to be their deck. They remodeled their house a while back and hard-scaped around the pool so they didn’t need the deck. The lumber was sitting near their garden just waiting to be used…

One of my goals this “offseason” (as if there ever really is!) is to maintain a constant supply of fresh basil from November to April. I could do this by simply planting a sequential crop of basil seeds every couple months. This will work but I have an easier way! Basil is one of those nifty plants that grows roots…

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…

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….

Drought tolerant Purple Coneflower It’s June and already we’re suffering drought conditions. The weather around us is more like late July and August than June with temperatures ten degrees higher than normal and no rain. We are dry as a bone. Last night I watched as a huge rain cloud dissipated into nothing before it made it to our garden…