Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie they came. Our house and community were surrounded. Hundreds or thousands, I could not possibly count them all. These small black birds flew in mass formations like blackened thunderclouds about to burst.(Use the player to hear the actual birds. It’s a little soft so you may have to turn your volume up.)They…

The hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) is one popular bird in the garden. We have a couple of regulars around the yard. They seem to like almost any colorful flower in the yard but are especially attracted to the zinnias. I’ve not only seen them on the zinnias but also the morning glories, the salvias, and even the tomato blossoms. The only…

You’ve probably noticed that there’s a lot of talk these days about self-sufficiency.  People are striving to reduce their impact on the environment by improving how things work.  Self-sufficiency is a great goal to have for your garden as well.  Not only does being self-sufficient help the environment but it makes a cheaper and healthier garden.  Today for the Friday Fives…

As gardeners we deal with all kinds of issue that can make gardening frustrating and difficult.  One of those issues is pests.  Pests come in many forms from thousands of kinds of insects to birds and animals.  No method of pest control is 100% effective all the time so gardeners need be creative problem solvers in the garden.  The best…

Jan at Thanks For Today is sponsoring a meme in support of Earth Day (April 22, 2010). I have to admit I’ve had trouble with this. It’s not that I have any problem with Earth Day or writing a post full of great tips for saving the world but when coming from a personal perspective to share something new my…

If you have a freely draining patio set in sand like I do you may have noticed weeds growing up through the cracks. These are generally caused by seeds that have landed on the patio and germinated and can be easy to eliminate. The most obvious way to deal with them is to try to pull them up. For a…

Companion planting is a great technique for a successful gardening. There are many combinations of garden plants that work well together including onions and potatoes. Here’s why! What is Companion Planting? How does it work for Potatoes and Onions? Companion planting takes advantage of complementary plants that can offer each other benefits to aid in their growth. There are a…

Though I have not told her, I have officially named my wife’s snowman Gumdrop. You will see why when you look at the picture! The snow was dry and hard to pack. At least it was for a while, later in the day it melted some and snowmen of various shapes and sizes appeared through out the land as if…

Our front sidewalk garden has always been a tricky thing. I plant the plants I like there but I’ve rarely given consideration to other people who walk down the sidewalk which is becoming problematic. It’s a problem because of two things: many of the plants I plant attract pollinators (which doesn’t bother me a bit but does bother those who…

Last year I embarked on a quest to start my own nursery business.  One of my dreams for a long time has been to own my own nursery and I began putting plans together around a couple business ideas that I could do from home.  I researched all over the internet to find resources and advice on how to start…

So what can you do while it’s under 20 degrees outside and you are stuck inside but still want to do something garden related? Extract seeds from ornamental peppers! That probably wasn’t the first thing on your mind but it works for me! Extracting the seeds from these ‘Black Pearl’ ornamental peppers was one of those small items on my…

I’ve seen many posts around the garden blogosphere about signature plants. That’s a hard one for me because there are so many plants I like and every year I find a new one that seems to be the best of the best. Picking one plant from the hundreds of thousands of possibilities really seems futile. So rather than talk about…

OK, here’s your chance!  Your weekend assignment is to come up with a garden/landscape plan that would fit a roughly 6′ by 10′ area that incorporates as many elements of the winter garden as you wish.  There are no rules or guidelines to follow, just do something that you think will look great and show it off!  Do your best…

When working in the garden or on the farm being able to positively identify poison ivy is very important. Who wants to end up with an itching spreading rash? There is the old adage “Leaves of three Let it be, leaves of five let it thrive” but that isn’t always clear. There are lots of plants that at first glance…

Spring time is always interesting for hostas. They emerge from the soil with tight leaf buds designed to drill their way up to the surface and finally open up to become the foliage plants we all know and love.Our hostas are springing up all over our corner shade garden. Along with the heucheras, heucherellas, oak leaf hydrangea, and Soloman’s seal…

Yesterday I posted an enhanced photo of a flower from my garden and asked readers to try to identify it. I disguised it a little by removing the color and cropping and zooming the picture. I though it was a neat way to look at one of my favorite plants in the garden, the coneflower! This particular one was Echinacea…

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…

The garden is gearing up for growth are you ready?  Have you prepared the garden and gotten everything set to grow?  I haven’t but the warm weather is going to be here this weekend and I’ll be making some headway into my garden’s preparation.  When to prepare the garden varies depending on where you live but several of these tasks…