Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

(Time x (Knowledge + Experience) x Money )= Your GardenHow successful is your garden? I think you can tell just by observing the outcome, but there are elements that go into it that effect your desired outcome.Time to me is by far the most important. The amount of time spent planning, weeding, planting, propagating, or even researching play a huge…

There are many choice of trees to plant and reasons why you might want to plant them. In this post I want to highlight a few ornamental trees that might be worth planting in your landscape. Ornamental trees really could be any kind of tree but typically have great flowers or special and interesting foliage. They usually have more than…

While I can assure you that my back is perfectly fine (at the moment!) I do need to have some work done on the back of the greenhouse shed. A few more things have been accomplished since my last greenhouse update but there are always more tasks to tackle (it seems like I’ve said that before). Since last time I’ve fitted a…

In 2007 I started this blog on gardening.  I didn’t know where I was going with it, or what I was really doing to begin with, but I knew I wanted to talk more about gardening with other gardeners.  I was constantly talking about gardening and garden ideas with my family, and I’m sure they got tired of my incessant…

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…

I really like plants that decide to take the work away from the gardener and sow their own seeds! Of course even the best plant that self sows could technically become a weed if planted in the wrong place, but since most are easily moved I really don’t mind.  Today’s Seed Sowing Saturday post is all about the self sowing…

It’s just about time to start seeds indoors for peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes here in TN so I thought I would share a quick post on how I make my seed starting medium (mix).  Seed starting mixes can be bought with the same ingredients as what I’m about to share with you but when you mix it yourself you can…

Since summer has now officially come and gone and I only started this site a week ago (give or take a day or two), I thought I would share an easy project that I did this summer from another old wooden palette. Originally I was going to turn it into a compost bin, but after using the palette laying on…

A couple years ago I bought a fantastic native plant at a local native plant nursery. It was a red buckeye (Aesculus pavia) and is great for attracting everyone’s favorite tiny garden visitor, the hummingbird. The flower clusters are red (you probably expected that from the name: red buckeye), tubular, and bloom in early spring. Red buckeye trees grow best…

It’s been warm here in TN.  Very warm. So warm that everything thinks it is indeed spring – including this gardener!  Essentially it is spring.  The weather is identical to a typical March, warm days, heavy rain showers coming through.  We’ve even had thunderstorms – in January.  It’s been a strange month.  But just because it feels like spring, looks…

I love a nice Japanese maple! Who doesn’t? There are Japanese maples  with variegated leaves, ones with deep burgundy colors, others with interesting shaped leaves that are highly dissected and many other kinds. The fall color on a Japanese is almost always guaranteed to be something special.  Their highly ornamental nature makes them very popular trees in the landscape. Last summer I gathered…

When the fruit first begins to form in your vegetable garden you may notice a condition where the blossom ends of the fruit turns brown to black then begins to rot away. This can happen to a number of different vegetable garden producers like tomatoes, squash, peppers, and more. Aptly named “Blossom End Rot”, this condition is nothing to be…

I was looking on Amazon at some of the bestselling garden tools recently and I noticed this little tool that I found interesting: A Leatherman Pruning tool. It’s a neat idea but as I pondered it I began to wonder exactly how useful it might be. Would it be able to replace my Swiss Army pocket knife I carry everywhere?…

Unfortunately I’m a day late on Bloom Day but I’m definitely not a bloom short! Yesterday I posted the Fall Color Project Post for the week. Be sure to take plenty of photos for your Fall Color Project 2010 Post! On with the blooms! Yellow Pansies – still need planted… Pink annual Salvia coccinnea Purple Coneflowers – a little washed…

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 one of our coreopsis plants with it’s blooming like dozens of little yellow and red suns. I’ve recently discovered two small pots that have between 10-15 coreopsis seedlings in each of them. The rain garden I built will probably be a recipient of several as will the vegetable garden perennial ring.And a close-up picture with some rain drops…

Disclaimer: The following post is a sponsored review of the Troy-Bilt TB490 XP ™ 4×4 Self-Propelled mower. All opinions are solely the opinion of the author who in exchange for goods and compensation was asked to do this review. In my last post I told you a little bit about my trip to Savannah, Georgia with the Troy-Bilt Brand Ambassadors….

I went out yesterday morning with the camera and took some photos of the shade garden. Rather than stand back and shoot the whole scene I chose to take a few close up photos of the leaves. To me one of the most interesting parts of a plant is the foliage. Many plants have a limited time only policy on…