Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Along one side of our property there is a narrow strip of land between the house and our neighbors’ properties.  There isn’t much room to do a whole lot of gardening (or so I originally thought) and this side of the house felt exposed when we bought our home in 2007.  This is how it looked a couple years ago…

I mentioned in my last post I would show you the trees that dad planted.  There are quite a few and in this post I really can’t show you all of them but maybe you can see just how much dad loved his trees. This crape myrtle is really a beautiful fall color tree.  Most people usually consider crape myrtles…

It was a moment of pure beauty early this morning. We awoke to find the landscape covered in snow and with a winter wonderland waiting before us. I was out just before dawn to catch the sunrise and take some pictures in a setting that I very rarely get to photograph. I’m especially pleased with the first picture. It’s a…

Our president gave us his State of the Union address for 2010 this week and informed us of his plans and his thoughts so I thought why not do the same for my garden? It’s been a while since I’ve addressed the garden as a whole entity as usually I just discuss its parts or its plants. Let me start…

Every year one of the great performances in my garden is the performance of the poppies. These simple red flowers came in a free packet of seed several years ago and still keep on putting on powerful displays of red paper-like petals. With as easy as poppies are to grow and maintain (I do nothing other than spread the seeds…

I do a lot of thinking. Too much probably but I have ideas and they have to work themselves out in my head or in the garden one way or another!  The gardening “off-season” is when I plan.  It’s when I take those thoughts in my head and entertain them before discarding the impractical ones.  You know, like the idea…

This winter has been cold and nothing if not unpredictable. Here in Tennessee we’re experiencing a warm day every now and then followed by extreme cold. Hopefully now that March has arrived and spring is close things will be shaping up very soon. With that in mind I put together a project that will help me to get a jump…

Here is what blooms in my Tennessee garden in May 2010. There’s always a lot to see this time of year and I’m sure I’ve missed some things but here we go! Red AchilleaPatio Garden – Garden Shed in the background Achillea, Phlox pilosa, and Catmint CombinationDeck Garden – The irises here are done but the foliage still remains. Nepeta…

This is a hard topic for one so organized as I (which would be not). Organization is something I have gotten better about over the years but I still fall woefully short of any real system. I’m probably like most people, I intend to start getting organized. Then I actually start doing a few things to get organized. Then a…

Another day is done for the greenhouse-shed project and a little bit more has been accomplished. It’s moving along at a good pace; not too fast or hurried but careful and methodical. Yesterday we finished setting the posts and today we ended construction by putting up most of the framing for the first large picture window.Before the window framing we…

I’m a sucker for cheap perennials – annuals too for that matter. If I go to a nursery I look first at the shrubs and trees just to look – to see what they have. Then I hang out and hover over the perennials, herbs, and even the annuals. I gravitate to the cheap prices marked on perennials and annuals…

This week I went to my mom’s house to do a little digging.  Back in the late spring we noticed small butterfly bush seedlings beginning to sprout in the pathway’s of her vegetable garden. As they grew large enough to transplant the weather became hot and transplanting wasn’t a great idea. Then my father passed away and just about everything…

The fifteenth of another month has arrived which means it’s time for Bloom Day! This bloomday just finds me happy that I have plants alive and virtually ecstatic that I have blooms. If you’ve been reading along lately you probably have heard me complain before about the lack of rain and the really high temperatures. Water is so vital to…

Salvia is a excellent plant to put in a garden. They are drought tolerant (which is important in Tennessee) and look great. They also come in many colors including red, pink, white, orange, blue, and purple. Depending on where you live and the variety you choose it may be a perennial or an annual. According to the website Floridata, there…

Unique berry producing plants are always welcome in my garden. What do I mean by unique? I’m glad you asked! If you didn’t ask then bear with me anyway. To me a unique berry plant is one that may not be in everyone’s landscape. Plants that look spectacular because of the berries and the berries aren’t just an added bonus….

Seed shortages on our minds saving seeds from your garden is more important than ever. So how do you save tomato seeds? There are a couple of methods that can be successful but one way you can do this is through fermentation of tomato seeds. This is not a hard process so don’t let it intimidate you! I’ve described the…

When selecting seeds for the vegetable garden it always pays to be early – in this case I was not. Several of the selections I had planned on making were in fact sold out when I finally got around to ordering from Baker Creek. The early bird gets the worm is the old saying but maybe it should be the…

First let me thank everyone who entered the giveaway for the Troy-Bilt 4 Cycle string trimmer.  I really wish I could be like Oprah. Everyone in the audience would look under their chairs and find a new Troy-Bilt 4 Cycle string trimmer, but her bank account has a much higher capacity than mine!  Thankfully though my association with Troy-Bilt allows…