Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

I want to take a moment to tell you about some other products that were sent to me recently for my garden.I fully intended to run these products through the garden wringer but the funny thing about this season is that I haven’t watered the garden since early JUNE! We’ve had regular rainfall coming through and so I haven’t needed…

For several years now I’ve written about the value of planting in raised beds.  One of the most viewed posts on Growing The Home Garden is my post Designing a Raised Bed Vegetable Garden: 11 Things to Think About.  It has 11 design tips that will help your vegetable garden layout achieve its maximum potential.  Hopefully you’ll find them useful! …

In my opinion you can never have enough fall color! Jan just posted more for us to look at and I highly recommend that you do. Photos of fall reflecting across water with hues of red, orange, and yellow blending in a perfect autumn tapestry is what you will find.  Fall is here at Thanks For 2 Day! See the…

It’s time to announce the winners of the variety pack of seeds! Using an online random number generator at Random.org I numbered each commenter in the order they commented and the winning numbers happened to be 8, 7, and 6 in that order which means that the 3 winners of the Variety pack of seeds from Hometown Seeds are as…

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…

There’s no doubt about it but Bachelor’s buttons (also known as Cornflower, Centaurea cyanus) are beautiful flowers in the spring garden. They have amazing blue colored petals with a darker blue center. Bachelors buttons grow very easily from seeds and require no real care to proliferate – and that is where the problem is – they can spread like crazy!…

This morning’s cool temperatures made it feel like my favorite season is well on its way.  Of course autumn is coming but the extra cool August temperatures we’re having have me hoping for an extended fall season.  Here’s a look at a few things from around the garden this morning! ‘Arizona Sun’ Gaillardia – Blanket Flower is a good native…

Most people got it right! The correct answer was the hemlock. The Canadian Hemlock or Tsuga canadesis is a great plant to use as an evergreen screen or a specimen tree. It has the potential to grow between 40-70 feet tall and could spread up between 25-35 feet in diameter. Its foliage is soft and feathery unlike many other evergreen…

I bet when you read the first three words “Bradford Pears breaking” you immediately though of another kind of breaking. One of the reasons they are on my least favorite ornamental tree list is because the trees frequently break in storms. These trees grow so fast that the wood suffers and they just can’t muster the strength to hold out…

The Middle Tennessee Plant Swap is tomorrow. I’ll write more about it later. Here is what I’m bringing:4 Russian Sages 2 Red Twig Dogwoods14 Japanese Dappled Willows (Salix integra) 12 Euonymous fortunei (‘Emerald Gaiety’) 4 Blue Spruce Sedums8 Purple Leaf Plums4 Nandinas (courtesy of the birds) 2 Chrysanthemums of an unknown color and variety.I’ll tell you about what I bring…

While we are eating, and playing, and celebrating the holiday let us always remember why we celebrate, our freedom! Happy Independence Day!

After you’ve run out and gotten your tree you have to plant it. Let’s assume you’ve selected the right location for the tree. Large trees should not be located too close to structures or underneath power lines. Always remember that the roots of the tree often extend past the drip line of the tree. (The drip line is the edge…

With summers in Tennessee you never know exactly what your going to get. Usually you expect dry and hot. That’s a pretty safe bet.  But lately the temperatures have reminded me of fall. The scents are on the wind.  Fall blooming plants like goldenrod and ironweed are beginning to flower. The smell of fall is in the air – but summer isn’t over yet. When…

Over the next several days (until the voting begins on the Better Homes and Gardens 48 Hour Blog Challenge) I’ll be giving small previews of my Arbor project. It’s ready to go and I’m very pleased with the result. Here’s a first look at one aspect of the arbor: Solar Lights: Solar lights are one of those garden details that…

Nandina domestica is not one of those plants that I like to propagate. It’s a nice enough plant but I’ve always been of the opinion that it’s overplanted in way too many landscapes. Every commercial business around has at least one and when a plant is that common I tend to cringe when I see it. Most of those are…

It’s been a while since I’ve recapped any of the older posts here at Growing The Home Garden.  Since today I’ll be at the Bloom N’ Garden Expo I thought I would put together a quick recap post for the Friday Fives.  The posts listed in this post have been around for a while and continue to be some of…

After my post yesterday about the Snowy Owl Visit to Spring Hill, TN, Pete sent me a few of his pictures of the owl. He was able to get much closer to the bird than I could and his pictures are fantastic! He prefaced the pictures with a story that I’ll share with you in this post. I am a…