Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

While my garden is pretty much bare naked others are still draped in colorful fall foliage! From Tennessee to Alabama and Georgia fall color has peaked in the the 7 days since our last Fall Color Project Post. Let’s take a look! Frances has a great fall color post filled with autumn associated colors. One of my favorite plants (that…

This week I began testing a new (to me at least) gardening technique! Using black plastic tarps in the garden to kill off the weed growth underneath. The concept is a simple way to prepare a garden bed for planting. The use of garden tarps is something that I discovered when I read The Market Gardener by Jean Martin Fortier…

Last year my plum tree was the victim of a savage deer rubbing attack. The bark was stripped all the way around the trunk leaving no possibility of water passing toward the top of the tree through the cambium layer. It was frustrating to say the least. Two varieties of plum trees are necessary for good cross pollination to produce…

I think I’ve failed to fully express my appreciation for my culinary sage. So let’s fix that!  Sage (or Salvia officinalis) is one of those herbs that I use in all kinds of culinary concoctions from soup to seasonings.  Almost any kind of meat tastes better with fresh sage. Chicken, meatloaf, turkey, just about everything…it’s almost like the bacon of…

Knockout roses are great additions to any garden.  They are more resistant to pests and diseases and continue to provide blooms throughout the summer.  This rose is planted in a corner bed between our front sidewalk and the driveway. Gallery of Other Roses from Our Garden More from Growing The Home Garden

It’s that time of year when the leftovers of the gardening season go on sale at the nurseries and home improvement centers. The last of the stock plants are ready to go home like misbegotten playthings on the Island of Misfit Toys. For whatever reason these plants remained unsold and can now be found as a bargain for the thrifty…

Now before you go looking at my hand drawn art please note that I do not claim to be an artist, just a gardener. The paint I am used to is usually accompanied by foliage, flowers, and fruit. The “artistic rendering” below is intended to illustrate the image inside my head for one of the two concepts for the winter…

Fall vegetable gardening can certainly be interesting in Tennessee!  You never quite know how the weather is going to shape up.  Is it going to frost early?  Late?  Will the temperatures be normal or extra warm like we’ll be having this week?  You just never know.  For gardening weather this October we’ve had a couple light frosts but nothing damaging…

For today’s issue of Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day I can actually share with you some very nice flowers all thanks to the recent rains. The extra water perked up enough of the garden for it to be almost perfectly presentable just in time for the 15th of July. I hope you enjoy them as much as this happily buzzing bee…

Though it is listed in the invasive plants list for Tennessee the very quality that makes Miscanthis sinensis so invasive makes it fun to have in the garden, the seeds!  Ornamental grasses of all kinds add great fall color interest with their seed heads or tassels that wave in the wind. This particular variety is ‘Zebrinus’ or Zebra grass. If…

Hydrangeas are fantastic garden plants! The flowers are beautiful but even when not in bloom hydrangeas can be a well formed shrub in the garden. Yesterday while walking through the garden I found a hydrangea that had rooted itself on the ground. This is called layering. Layering is a method of plant propagation where you can encourage roots roots to…

I hope when you read this post that the rains are coming down in a delightful shower to water your garden, because they certainly aren’t here! It’s dry, extremely dry. Working in the ground is like cutting through a brick. Fortunately we’ve planted plants over the years that can tolerate these dry drought conditions. Autumn sage is one of those…

Than a delicious, dark red, juicy sliced tomato? My turkey wrap sandwich was very happy this afternoon with the addition of this red fruit of the garden. Not too juicy and not too meaty, just perfect – the perfect tomato experience. The scent of the tomato after cutting it open was like taking in the fragrance of a honeysuckle flower….

I’d like to say some great things right now about my nasturtiums. I’d like to tell you that they are taking off and look fantastic but about the best I can do is say that we’re hanging in there. It’s just been too darn hot to get anything to grow happily from seed. June was excruciatingly hot, well over 10…

They were right! There, let it be said that the weather predictors and prognosticators said we were going to have snow and we did. Unfortunately the manner of snow and the amount of snow differed from what the forecast originally said (which was 2-3 inches at one point). Currently we have between 4-6 inches of snow with a nice smooth…

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…

I got a few more pictures this morning of the Snowy Owl here in Spring Hill, TN from Pete.  The first one can only be described as spectacular with a sunrise in the background.  He also managed to get a  few close-ups!     Related Snowy Owl Posts: A Snowy Owl Story Snowy Owl Visits Spring Hill, TN