Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Thursday I got my new camera and of course I couldn’t wait to get outside and take a few pictures to test it! Let me just say that I am impressed with this Nikon D40. The pictures are much more clear and precise. The camera just functions better than our old Olympus. I’ll still use the old camera from for…

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…

Ornamental grasses are some of the easiest plants to propagate and they look so good in the garden. Today I potted up seven rooted sections of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum). Four of them were ‘Shenandoah’ which gains a reddish coloring in the leaves in late summer and fall and three were ‘Northwind’ which has a taller and more upright shape. Switchgrasses…

A sea of color is what awaits you at Tina’s blog (In the Garden). Tina is writing to us from the undersea world of foliage, with photographs of maples, redbuds, and sumac displaying their fall color. The pictures come to us from Maine, Indiana and Tina’s garden so there is a variety of pictures to see! Or should I have…

You just have to love a flower that brings the sunshine down into the bland February garden. Winter Jasmine (Jasmine nudiflorum)  is a perfect fit for those gardeners who are fed up with winter and can’t wait for spring. It isn’t very showy the rest of the year with its normal looking deciduous green foliage but just before spring this…

Since I’ve been doing posts on trees this past week for Arbor Day (April 25th) I thought I would take a second to talk about one threat to your trees, tent caterpillars (Malacosoma americanum). They are quite common in Tennessee and many other areas of the country. Watch out for these little caterpillars on your hardwood trees. Once they form…

Yesterday I put together a small vegetable layout plan for my raised bed garden. It’s just one of many possibilities for companion planting and it only deals with a small number of plants. This plan features tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and marigolds in a 4 foot by 8 foot bed. All of these plants are listed in various companion planting guides…

I had a very productive weekend! It’s been a while since I spent so much time outdoors and despite the heat, the sun, the sweat, and big case of farmer’s tan a bunch of chores were accomplished. One surprise though was my potatoes. The potato bed was overrun with Bermuda grass as I mentioned the other day but even before…

Yesterday I did a fair amount of organizing in our garage. The primary goal was to fit my wife’s car in it but I also had an ulterior motive: organizing the garage would make it more usable for all the future projects I have planned. We have a bunch of boxes that are now stacked up as high as the…

This weekend a reader emailed me a few questions she had about my post 5 Fall Things To Do to Prepare the Vegetable Garden for Spring.  I thought that other gardeners may be interested in hearing the answers to those questions as well so for today we’ll begin an intermittent series of garden questions and answers!  Feel free to chime…

Picture taken on Wednesday March 5, 2008

Below you will find six plants that are some of the easiest to care for and grow in the garden.  All are drought tolerant and are very seldom bothered very little by deer or rabbits (two of my greatest nemeses!) In addition to their drought tolerant and pest resistant properties these plants are very good at attracting beneficial insects like bees,…

Coral Red honeysuckle or Lonicera sempervirens is the honeysuckle you want – I mean really want- not the other kind. You probably have honeysuckle somewhere near you right now. It’s white, smells pretty good, and it may even be right behind you as you read this, don’t look! Lonicera japonica knows you are there, it’s waiting to spread and take…

By now you’ve probably heard about the study that says organically grown vegetables are not any healthier than their “conventionally” grown counterparts.  If you haven’t I’ll sum it up in a nutshell. The study examined the nutrients and vitamins present in organic produce and compared it to conventionally grown vegetables and didn’t find a significant difference between the two. This might…

Over the last year I’ve been enthralled with heucheras. I see a new one and I have to add it to the garden! If you are looking for a versatile foliage perennial then definitely take a look at the heucheras (Coral Bells). There are many varieties so far I have at least 5 different kinds in my gardens. The last…

The other day the rain garden completed a mini-test. It really was more of a pop quiz. It wasn’t multiple choice or fill in the blank. It was true or false, did it work or not? There was only about 0.34 inches of rain but it easily handled that amount. Here’s what the drainage looked like before the rain garden…

This afternoon I went outdoors in the beautiful 60 degree weather and harvested our potato crop.  Truth be told its a rather small harvest of potatoes but considering that I didn’t intentionally plant them I am quite pleased!  When you leave behind a few potatoes from the spring/early summer harvest they grow into a nice fall crop.  Growing potatoes is…

If there is one plant I intend to keep in my garden every year it would be a gaillardia and more specifically ‘Oranges and Lemons’. ‘Oranges and Lemons’ gaillardia (blanket flower) is a prolific bloomer that gives a bright and sunny look to the perennial plantings from summer through fall (zones 5-9). Even after the blooms have faded the seed…