Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Among many potential plants a gardener should consider in the garden are ground covers. Groundcovers allow you to fill in areas of the garden for a lush seemless scene. One such groundcover that is very low maintenance is liriope and in this post I’m specifically talking about Liriope muscari ‘Variegata’.  There are other varieties of liriope that aren’t as attractive…

I know what this plant is, do you? See if you can guess it!The young foliage.The flowers.A stem covered with bugs! (Crane flies, harmless but they are everywhere right now)

Fruiting Plum trees rooted through hardwood cuttings. Winter is officially here! If you’re reading this post you are probably thinking what I can do in the garden in winter? Well if you’re a fan of plant propagation you should try some winter plant propagation! What plants you can propagate and at what time of the year largely depends on the…

Yellow is a color that just seems to brighten things up. It’s like bringing  a little sunshine to the earth and into the garden. Most of my yellow plants love soaking up the sun which is great since shade in my garden is extremely limited. Today I’m showing you 3 of the yellow perennials from my garden (achillea, coreopsis, and…

OK, maybe you didn’t, but what gardener doesn’t want to see flowers in bloom?  Here’s a quick look around at the blooms of my garden for Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day hosted by Carol and May Dreams Gardens! The bees always love the coneflowers. Blackberry lily. Blackberry lily gets ts name from the seed clusters that resemble the compound fruit of…

You’ve seen it before I’m sure.  A surprise plant or two coming up where you would least expect it.  A bird may have moved the seed around, or maybe it was caught can carried along on the wind. But have you ever had a whole garden just appear ready to go?  I have!  Now it’s not the perfect fall garden. …

Here is Part 3 in The Home Garden’s series of posts about how to garden on a budget.One thing that drives me crazy about lawn mowing is when I see someone mowing their grass when it doesn’t need it. Imagine the scene: it hasn’t rained in two weeks, the grass hasn’t grown a centimeter, and someone is out riding in…

I think you will see why I bought Coreopsis ‘Limerock Dream’.  I have a fondness for perennial coreopsis since they are so easy to grow here in Tennessee. The colors on this variety drew my eyes instantly. It’s not plain yellow like my ‘Moonbeam’ Coreopsis or ‘Jethro Tull’.  The yellow colors seem to begin in the center of the flower…

This year I decided to make a salad, or rather a salad green bed! This is one of the 3’x4′ beds in our raised bed vegetable garden. I decided to section it off into four smaller squares rather than plant in rows. I prefer to sprinkle the seed for lettuce and spinach instead of placing each seed (I think it…

What can I say really? It’s January and my vegetable garden is awfully sad. The winter air has been colder than Tennessee cold should be.  If I were by myself I might be brave enough to get outdoors but bringing my almost 7 month old son outdoors during the day really isn’t an option. He’ll get his fill of gardening…

Several weeks ago I wrote a post about one of my favorite shrubs, the Japanese Dappled Willow ‘Hakuro Nishiki’ (Salix integra). It’s a fast growing variegated willow that works well as a privacy screen and is hardy in zones 4-9. It’s deciduous so it will be bare over the winter but the new growth in the spring time is fun…

Last week I attended the Nashville Lawn and Garden Show.  I’ve been very busy planting seeds and getting the garden ready and I haven’t had a lot of time to post lately so I thought I would share a few short posts with your from the show that had some clever design ideas that you may want to consider for…

While out of town this past weekend at my in-laws home I took the opportunity to take more cuttings from their pyracantha (Pyracantha augustifolia). It is a favorite of shrub for birds due to its bright orange berries and is has an appropriately named common name: Firethorn. Firethorn’s thorns are quite sharp and offer the plant good protection from would…

Sometimes when you look really close at things they appear much different than you expect. Sometimes closeup pictures appear almost…alien. Like a strange land that contains unique flora of its own. What do you think? Can you imagine the foreign fluffy ferns and gigantic puffy cup-shaped mushroom fungi? Can you disappear for a moment into the picture and immerse yourself…

This time of year is always very special. The leaves are coming out on all the trees and the barren treeline in the backyard becomes a lush forest of greenery.  The treeline is filled with maples, tulip poplars, sassafras and small variety of other trees.

I love a nice Japanese maple! Who doesn’t? There are Japanese maples  with variegated leaves, ones with deep burgundy colors, others with interesting shaped leaves that are highly dissected and many other kinds. The fall color on a Japanese is almost always guaranteed to be something special.  Their highly ornamental nature makes them very popular trees in the landscape. Last summer I gathered…

Sometimes plants just want to fall open in the center. There’s an easy fix for this but it requires some spring stem tip pruning! Check out the video below for this very simple garden tip! How to Keep Plants from Falling Open in the Center

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…