Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Some days the rain gets you!Here’s one very wet cardinal finishing off the seed from our bird feeder in the rain.

Yesterday during a reprieve from the rain we went out to examine the state of the garden. The past two weeks I’ve been mostly concentrating on the greenhouse project and I felt it was time to see what I’ve been missing. The celosia I planted from seed this year did really well. It’s a virtually no maintenance annual unless you…

Here’s the situation. I have two pots on my front steps which each house an arrangement of Dusty Miller and cordyline.  The problem is the cordyline is looking a little worse for wear.  It’s not supposed to be hardy here in Tennessee but so far it’s stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive despite cold temperatures in the mid to lower 20’s. It’s…

I’ve written before about propagating Husker’s Red Penstemon (Penstemon digitalis) but thanks to a garden club friend of mine I learned a new method to propagate them. She was talking to Rita Randolph of Randolph Greenhouses who passed on this little trick that I’m about to share with you. It is as easy as it gets! Here’s How to Propagate…

Today I did a few garden related things just to get outside – nothing major – nothing terribly exciting. Just a few little things as an excuse to breathe some fresh (and rather cold) air. The weather forecast calls for snow flurries over night but little or no accumulation – at least in our area. Butterfly Bush Cuttings I took…

I’ve written about Tennessee’s state tree, the Tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) before but I decided in order to show as many fall colors as possible I needed to split my pictures into several posts. Yes I really took that many pictures! That’s the danger of the digital world, I haven’t worried about wasting film in years. This particular tree stands…

The other day I mentioned rosemary but another herb that I utilize often is mint. While mint is a great plant to have it also has a reputation. You see, once it gets established it grows fast – very fast. It can quickly overtake other plants that are near it. Some people wouldn’t plant it with a ten foot pole…

Making your own plant propagation chamber is not a difficult task at all. For the home gardener who is only doing a few cuttings at a time propagate plants for friends and family a plant propagation chamber can be a VERY simple project. In fact you can put together a simple home plant propagation chamber can be made with one…

It’s been a good while since I had a couple hours to “maintain” the vegetable garden. Ideally I would take 20 minutes each day to weed, search the garden for problems, weed, prune, weed, and tie up tomatoes. Yes you may have noticed quite a few weeds, let’s just say so did I! Today I did a little bit of…

There are probably a million things I could think of that need done around the yard and in our various gardens but here are a few that are bouncing around in my head at the moment. I’ve been distracted with the deer the last couple days and several things that need done haven’t been tackled yet.Dave’s Fall Garden To-Do ListBuild…

Yesterday I was shopping at our local Lowe’s home improvement store looking for weatherstripping for the garden shed. While there I casually sauntered over to the plant area (after picking up three rolls of foam insulation) to see what they had in stock. It’s rare that I go to a store that has plants and don’t take a look (unfortunately…

Back in the fall I decided to take some arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis) cuttings and test to see how well they would root over the winter. Propagating plants over the winter as hardwood cuttings has some big advantages so it was definitely worth trying. How I Took the Arborvitae Cuttings I used the same method for taking cuttings that I wrote…

Monarda is called bee balm for a reason! This bee balm was brought home as a division from a plant in my wife’s aunt’s garden in West TN. Monarda is a great plant for attracting pollinators! It doesn’t only attract bees, butterflies are more than happy to land upon this flowering perennial. I planted it just outside our vegetable garden…

This morning I went out to tinker in the garden and had to capture some of images of the clear blue skies overhead. I was out taking cuttings on this cool spring-like morning that I’ll share a with you later today.The sky began as mostly overcast with a few spots of blue shining through.Soon the overcast skies gave way to…

Last week I wrote about my seed starting “mini-greenhouses” made from clear plastic cups so I thought I would share how my tomato seeds are doing so far. To sum things up I am very pleased with the results as I have very strong and healthy growing tomato seeds are in the mini-greenhouse cups.  Some of my tomato seedlings are already…

26th Annual Nashville Lawn & Garden Show 2015 Nashville Lawn & Garden Show Announces Wine Festival Wine Festival occurs on Saturday, March 7 during the 4-day Show  Nashville, TN – The Nashville Lawn and Garden Show will partner with the Tennessee Farm Winegrowers Alliance to present a one-day-only Wine Festival during its traditional four-day Show at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds. …

It’s been a while since I’ve written about our vegetable garden so I thought the end of April would be a good time for an update!  There are a few disappointments but overall most of the garden is right on track.  We’ve used raised beds for several years now but most of them have disintegrated.  I’ve replaced some with concrete…

Where do I find the seeds for my gardening activities? Lot’s of places! The most obvious location is in a store, either online or one of the old fashioned brick and mortar stores. The local Co-op always has seed to find as do the box stores (they have already begun putting out seeds for spring. You had better hurry they’ll…