Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Here is Part 7 of The Home Garden’s weekly series of posts about gardening on a budget.Last week I talked about making lists for your garden. I mentioned lists for plants you want, plants that did well and didn’t, project lists, and the consolidated list, but another good way to save money while gardening is to know your landscape. This…

Though I have not told her, I have officially named my wife’s snowman Gumdrop. You will see why when you look at the picture! The snow was dry and hard to pack. At least it was for a while, later in the day it melted some and snowmen of various shapes and sizes appeared through out the land as if…

We all know that Christmas is on it’s way and the gift buying season has commenced! Fortunately gardeners are easy to please with presents! Just find them something they can use in the garden and they will be thrilled! Below are some easy gift ideas for gardeners that you can use to give those with green thumbs something for Christmas!…

Since my garden shed’s construction was complete my updates have been less frequent. OK it’s not really complete yet but the physical structure is finished. (Feel free to check out the YouTube slideshow on the shed’s construction) There is a huge list of things I would like to add or improve on the shed and over time I’ll be tackling…

The signs of spring are showing themselves all over the garden. It’s not just in the flowers the bees and bugs are all coming out of their winter nesting places to sip on nectar and gain strength for another growing season. Here are a few pictures of the flowers I’ve seen over the week. The daffodils are coming up everywhere….

There’s no doubt about it but Bachelor’s buttons (also known as Cornflower, Centaurea cyanus) are beautiful flowers in the spring garden. They have amazing blue colored petals with a darker blue center. Bachelors buttons grow very easily from seeds and require no real care to proliferate – and that is where the problem is – they can spread like crazy!…

Several years ago I used to watch a cartoon called Earthworm Jim. (Yes I’ll admit I watched cartoons in college!) It was based on a video game that I never played but I guess was somewhat popular at the time.  In the cartoon Earthworm Jim was a space traveling superhero worm valiantly ridding the universe of bad guys like Professor…

Fall is the perfect time to start preparing tree and shrub seeds that need a period of cold weather before they’ll sprout. When seed starting tree and shrub seeds I use two techniques that help to trigger better germination rates. The first technique is simply soaking the seeds. The second process is called stratification and mimics the natural cycle seeds…

Yesterday I posted an enhanced photo of a flower from my garden and asked readers to try to identify it. I disguised it a little by removing the color and cropping and zooming the picture. I though it was a neat way to look at one of my favorite plants in the garden, the coneflower! This particular one was Echinacea…

In the light of the fading sun the shadows of the dogwood (Cornus florida) flowers rest lightly upon the bracts.

Periodically I like to walk around the yard to see what there is to see. I was out around 7:30 this morning and took these pictures of the yard. The plants are really showing their eagerness for the spring season.I don’t think many people consider maple trees for their flowers but maybe we should all take a closer look. The…

Everyone is thinking about the garden right now, if not they should be!  The vegetable garden is where you can really reap the rewards of your backyard.  Sometimes though you don’t know what you should be doing and when or (if you’re like me) forget a few things every now and then!  So here is a little garden checklist for…

I’m definitely no expert in roses.  Recently I saw this rose blooming at my mother-in-law’s home and was curious as to it’s identity. The insides of the bloom are a creamy yellow color while the outside of the petals are a kind of red-peach color. The rose has a cluster of four flowers which make it most likely a type…

I like to reuse things as much as possible, so I took an old post from an old wooden palette, sanded it and gave it a cedar stain. I left some of the darker marks on it so that it would maintain that rustic look. Then I fastened a copper birdbath that we had and put it into the ground….

In yesterday’s post on propagating switchgrasses I left out the picture of the ‘Northwind’ Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum). Also I didn’t post any details about the two switchgrasses that I mentioned. So here’s a little more about switchgrasses! Switchgrasses are native to the United States and flourish during the warm season. In my observations they are later to emerge from winter…

Yesterday I gave you a sneak peek at one of my favorite perennials that I decided to try and grow from seed this year, the heuchera! The seeds came from our corner shade garden which contains a small variety of heucheras like ‘Palace Purple’, ‘Mocha’, ‘Melting Fire’, ‘Fireworks’, and a heucherella named ‘Stoplight.’ Even in the winter they keep great…

The blue berries I’m about to show aren’t from any blueberry bush but are from the Arrowwood viburnum!  This viburnum is one of my favorites (but really, I think all viburnums are my favorites).  Viburnum dentatum has white flowers that appear in spring and are a great source of nectar for bees and butterflies.  The glossy green leaves persist until…