Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

As crazy as it sounds I’m still putting plants in the ground with temperatures up around 100!  The weather may be hot but sometimes you just have to deal with it and move on with your garden plans.  Usually a plant will perform much better with less water requirements if it has been planted in the ground rather than left…

Today and yesterday it rained. While it wasn’t the nice steady soaking rain that every gardener dreams of it also wasn’t the wimpy little sprinkles that tantalize the taste buds of the drought worried plant person. It was somewhere in between. Hopefully a little more rain will fall tomorrow as I can envision our tomatoes growing to the size of…

One of my favorite tools that I use in my garden is the scuffle hoe. That’s what I call it at least but it goes by other names like the stirrup hoe or hula hoe and even action hoe. The scuffle hoe is something you absolutely will love having and using in the garden. I use it almost daily and…

The other day I wrote about crop rotation, it’s importance, and it’s benefit in the garden so today I thought we’d begin looking at the individual families of vegetables and how they fit into the grand scheme of things. Since it is probably the most popular family, because of one of its members (the tomato), we’ll start discussing the nightshade…

One of my favorite shrubs is the Japanese dappled willow otherwise known as Salix integra. This was the first plant I experimented with for making cuttings. Maybe it was this shrub that launched my plant propagation obsession. My in-laws planted a few of these ‘Hakuro Nishiki’ dappled willows in their garden several years ago and I began taking cuttings from…

I couldn’t stand it anymore. I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and I just couldn’t take it anymore. It was just too much. The pressure of leaving has been building since the Garden Blogger Fall Color Project and each day it built a little more, another layer added to the top. I took all I could before…

Once your seeds have grown big enough to plant out in the garden it’s time to find a way to get them into the garden.  Direct sowed seeds have a big advantage in this area as they have grown from the start in the great outdoors are are already well adapted to the weather.  Seedlings grown indoors aren’t so lucky. …

Our president gave us his State of the Union address for 2010 this week and informed us of his plans and his thoughts so I thought why not do the same for my garden? It’s been a while since I’ve addressed the garden as a whole entity as usually I just discuss its parts or its plants. Let me start…

I don’t make many New Year’s resolutions.  I make goals instead.  I put together ideas of things I would like to accomplish and set out to do them.  I usually don’t get through every goal I set but by setting a few goals that are attainable I accomplish more than I would have otherwise! I’ll post my garden goals for…

Perennials are the work horse of just about every garden.  Trees and shrubs provide structure, but perennials provide a consistent impact.  Annuals are great for an instant punch but perennials give you a repeat performance year after year.  Some perennials bloom consistently through the season while others give a nice show for a short period of time.  Narrowing down the…

Over the years I have grown many plants. I have a bit of a collectors attitude toward my garden and pick out unique plants as much as possible. Some of those plants haven’t done well for me, but other plants have simply been amazing. I thought it would be a good idea to go back and look at some of…

Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) is indeed easy to propagate from hardwood cuttings.  In fact taking hardwood cuttings may prove more reliable than from softwood cuttings.  I’ll continue with both methods at the appropriate times of the year but the hardwood cuttings have not had any trouble with rotting or any other signs of problems.  In general hardwood cuttings are best…

I’ve made no secret about it but maples are without a doubt my favorite shade tree. Maples offer shade in the summer, feed wildlife with their samaras, and are a feast for the eyes in the fall. Reds, yellows, and oranges tend to be the predominate colors and they set the fall landscape on fire! All the gold colored maple…

Heavy rains are coming through Tennessee today and tomorrow so not much work will get done out in the garden. Yesterday I picked up some bagged dirt to add a little more soil to the vegetable garden to make up for what the rains had settled down. While getting the dirt at the big blue box store I noticed that…

As always I’m excited to get new plants through plant propagation and I’m pretty excited to add 5 new dwarf arborvitae to the collection!  I bought the ‘Little Giant’ arborvitae (Thuja occindentalis) last fall on the discount rack and planted two of them in the birdbath garden on either side of the pathway to the bench spot.  The idea was…

Welcome to Iowa and Shady Gardener’s garden where she asks Does Everything Grows Better in My Neighbor’s Yard? (Which incidentally I don’t believe and you wouldn’t either if you’ve seen her pictures of the garden! 😉 ) SG’s fall color post takes us not only from her garden but beyond to other areas of her town for some drive by…

December brings us to the end of another year. As a gardener you know that just because the calendar year may be ending our work (fun) is just beginning. It’s time to plan your 2019 Vegetable Garden. To me planning is the fun part. During the planning process I get to look for new varieties of seeds to try, think…

The passage of time in relation to plants is an amazing thing. I was looking back the other day at some old pictures from this past spring and was amazed at how different everything looks today. What was once a nearly barren bed in the front of our house has grown tremendously. The tulips of springtime faded and the front…