Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Seed starting time is just around the corner!  OK it may be a little more than around the corner for some gardeners but while we are planning our holiday gatherings those seed catalogs are coming in, enticing us to get started!  Today lets look at several seed starting techniques and methods that you can use to effectively get good germination and get…

In the fall there are several iconic thoughts that spring to mind of most people. Cool crisp days evoke good feelings and memories created around fall festivals, apple cider, holidays, and other fall activities. One way to share the fall experience with your family is to add a backyard fire pit. What could be better than a cool crisp evening…

Happy New Year! It’s that time of the year again when everyone thinks of how they can do things better than last year. What can they improve? What should they never, ever do ever again? People call them RESOLUTIONS (insert dramatic music here). While there are certainly things that I can do better and improve on, most of my goals…

I’m always excited to see Nancy Ondra’s garden through her blog Hayefield and now the fall color in her Pennsylvania Garden is ready for our annual tour!  Nan has been participating in the Fall Color Project for several years now and we’ve all been able to enjoy the fantastic varieties of plants, shrubs, and trees she has in her garden….

It’s been a while since my last garden shed update and I’ve done a few more things. Not directly on the shed itself but around the shed. You’ll see in the pictures below that there are two distinct garden areas near the shed. One directly in front of the shed and the other to the left (eastern) side. In between…

The dry season is well upon us. Here in Tennessee we haven’t seen a drop of rain in two weeks and even that was only .12 inches (at least in our garden). I’m not sure how long the plants can hang on without a good dose of liquid from the sky. And despite my repeated waterings the plants are suffering….

Since I decided to remodel the raised bed vegetable garden this year a lot of work has been done.  The beds have all been built for this year and all the grading I wanted to attempt is finished, for now.  The fence will be something of an ongoing project but we’ve erected a temporary wire fence made of 3 foot…

Several months ago now my youngest daughter and I journeyed up to Clay and Limestone to visit Gail. While there Gail gifted us with a bounty of planting presents like a group of junipers, her famously practically perfect pink phlox, several St. John’s Worts, golden ragworts, and a couple other plants that have now found a place in our garden….

Coneflowers are a work horse in many gardens including mine, but they aren’t completely issue free. Recently one of my coneflower plants began showing deformed flowers with a complete loss of color in the petals. The petals appeared stunted and pale. In some cases the deformed flowers mimic some new interesting variety of coneflower but it’s not, these are the…

I decided several years ago that I didn’t want to mess with chemicals in my garden.  It was an easy choice for me.  We had kids and I didn’t want to risk their exposure to dangerous substances.  I didn’t want to eat food covered in chemicals at the dinner table.  A tomato with a side of pesticide just wasn’t a…

Hello home gardeners, I need your suggestions!  You see a couple years ago my dad helped me build the  Blue Garden Shed.  One of the things I was eager to install was a green roof but I determined that I didn’t have the knowledge or the money at the time to do it correctly. As s substitute one of the…

Layering an arrowwood viburnum I really enjoy making new plants – you guessed that by now didn’t you? Most of the time I prefer to make stem cuttings of various types of plants whether shrub, tree, perennial, or annual but that isn’t always the easiest way. In many ways layering a plant is the simplest way to ensure a successful…

I was on the radio yesterday to talk about gardening on Spotlight on Spring Hill (WAKM 950 AM) and had several fall gardening topics prepared to share. Then the first guest to talk, our City Codes Inspector, began mentioning some upcoming projects and I nearly got completely sidetracked. You see I meant to talk about leaves, not to burn them,…

I just posted on the greenhouse shed page with a new report on the siding installation. The garden shed is shaping up! Adding the siding really changes the look for the better – much closer to what I’ve envisioned. There’s always more to do but progress is being made! I forgot to mention in the post but I also installed…

The battle has just begun. The lines have been drawn and the enemy has been sighted.I began scouting the territory in an attempt to locate the the wily villain and took these pictures. It was a difficult mission.I crept closer and closer to the encampment of the enemy, stopping often to cautiously take reconnaissance pictures. I was afraid of discovery….

I have always loved maples. When I was a kid I’d climb the maples at my grandfather’s house in Pennsylvania and watch them as they changed colors in the fall. The fall brilliance of a maple is something to be cherished and remembered. It is one of the greatest fall trees and Kim over in Maryland has two wonderful blazing…

…SNOW! Yep the southern Blizzard of 2011 got us pretty good this time. We have somewhere around 4-5 inches of snow on the ground. Here are a few pictures of our winter wonderland! Snow on the Arbor Snow on the Blue Garden Shed Snow on the butterfly bush Snow on the eastern cedar Snow on a hemlock Snow on a…

Marigold ‘Yellow Splash’ It’s the second day of August which means it’s time to see how the GROW project seeds have fared since our July Update!  ‘Yellow Splash’ Marigolds As you can see in the picture to the right we’re starting to get a few flowers on the ‘Yellow Splash’ marigolds in the vegetable garden.  I started more seeds a…