Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Updated on 11/23/2024 Fall is that time of year when gardeners begin the process of cleaning up the garden but also is the time when we begin to think of next year and saving seeds. One of the my favorite plants is echinacea and I like to save the seed from it to grow and expand gardens. Saving seeds of…

Here is a post I meant to publish over a month ago and it just got lost in the abundance of things to talk about this growing season! I have added a couple updated pictures.In our corner shade garden we have hostas, heucheras, an oak leaf hydrangea, coleus, and astilbe. It’s fun to play around and see what plants look…

This week my family spent a few hours gathering and hauling rock from our home construction site. When we bought the property we knew that were were “gifted” with lots of rock on the site but the amount of rock is really much more than we imagined. Surface rock was visible in many areas of the property. Rock can be…

First let me apologize for not writing much lately. Life has been busy and I haven’t been able to get into the garden as much. Things are winding down for the cold season fortunately and while there is still much to do in the garden it always seems more manageable when the weeds are no longer actively growing! This morning…

While the calendar says it is spring there are some other indicators of the season. I’ll name a few and you are welcome to add or comment on what you think some other signs of spring are!You know it’s spring when…the smell of grass clippings from a recent mowing wafts through your yard on the wind.the smell of onions wafts…

July is a prime time to propagate plants from the garden. Summertime plants generally have plenty of good growth that is at the ideal stage (softwood or semi-hardwood cuttings) and have plenty of time to make enough roots to overwinter well. Plus the summer heat helps cuttings to root fast. Whether you are just wanting more plants for your gardening,…

Wednesday was full of randomness, although it wasn’t all gardening.  A little bird watching, a little gardening, and a little bit of house stuff all rolled together to make a Wednesday. The day started with a trip to the home improvement store.  Not for gardening stuff this time but for painting materials.  A bathroom in our house needs redone so…

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…

This time of year I’m always overwhelmed by the massive amount of work that needs done in the garden. This blog sometimes helps me to keep organized when I put together a list of those garden things to do. 5 Fall Garden Chores I Need to Do in My Garden Clean up the vegetable garden. It’s overgrown from too many…

I have a fondness for fall color. I think we all do this time of year. We like seeing the transition of green to gold or red and oranges. There’s a little bit of a feeling of closure that begins to come to us through the fall. That the end of one chapter is almost here and soon we will…

Have you ever wondered what the inside of a dogwood (Cornus florida) seed looks like?  If you read yesterday’s Name that Seed post you caught a glimpse of some dogwood seeds that were cleaned off by the birds.  Many birds enjoy eating the berries that form on flowering trees.  In this case the bird ate the fleshy outer covering of…

Last Friday I mentioned 5 Vegetable Garden Design Tips for the Friday Fives post.  Today we’ll look at some more vegetable garden design tips that relate to organization of a garden’s layout!  I’ll have to own up and admit it that the organization part of gardening is a skill where I am somewhat deficient though I am striving to do…

Here are just a few of the gardening events happening in Tennessee. If you have one that you know of and would like to submit for me to add to this list please send me an email.Bloom N’ Garden ExpoThe Williamson County Ag Expo CenterApril 11-12, 2008: 10 AM to 8 PMApril 13, 2008: 12 AM to 5 PMTickets: Adults…

The other day I mentioned I had another daylily that was about to bloom called ‘Primal Scream’, well that daylily is screaming now! ‘Primal Scream’ has large orange blooms that have faint hints of reddish coloring in the outer edges of the petals and a more true orange color the further toward the center. I planted my ‘Primal Scream’ daylily…

The Bradford Pear tree (Pyrus calleryana), sure it looks nice but it’s one tree that people should stay away from planting in their yard. At first glance you might wonder “why shouldn’t I plant a Bradford pear tree?” They have a great shape, they grow fast, and they flower profusely in the spring. Unfortunately for the homeowners who plant the…

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…

Over at Ledge and Gardens in Rhode Island Layanee has put together a post about my favorite trees, maples! Layanee’s maples are mostly Japanese maples and their color is nothing short of awesome. From orange to red to gold-green these maples don’t disappoint for fall color. Included in her post are the Acer palmatum varieties ‘Omurayama’ and ‘Osakasuki’, as well…

If you’re out in your vegetable garden and see big, honking caterpillars like this, you need to remove them from your tomato plants as quickly as possible. These are hornworms and they can be very devesatting to your tomato plants. There are two main hornworm that tend to show up on our tomato plants: the tomato hornworm and the tobacco…