Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Here’s just a quick list of what needs done with the rain garden in chronological order. 1) Finish excavation: I need to expand the “Big Dig” to its final size. I’m not 100% sure how much bigger I’ll make it but I want to shape into more of a curve. I also need to finish excavating the channel parallel to…

In my last post I told you how to begin planning for an edible landscape and how to determine what to grow. Today let’s examine what elements you need to incorporate into the plan.  With an edible landscape we need to focus on one thing: sustainability.  Sustainability is a word used a lot these days and for our gardening goals…

The historic dryness finally gave way to some rain on Halloween. About 0.83 inches came down that day give us a good soaking. We still need more rain, and regular rain but it definitely helps. I’ve been concerned about the lack rain and the fall color potential but fortunately some trees have done really well despite the lack of rain….

Recently I highlighted a few new acquisitions to my garden under the guise of some sort of window collection. Clearly all you bright gardeners saw right through my windows and into my future plans to put together a greenhouse! Today I’ll officially tell you about my plans, and more specifically about its location, even though I still don’t have a…

As always plant propagation is a major event around my garden. Ever since I started playing with rooting plant material several years ago (with the dappled willows) I haven’t been able to help myself. Even when I’m not able to propagate new plants I still like to add to the number of plants in the garden by propagating more of…

There are few fall performers more majestic than the beautyberry.  My beautyberry is Callicarpa dichtoma ‘Early Amethyst’ and is a native of Asia.  It’s a beautiful shrub with tiny white flowers in the summer that become loaded with clusters of purple berries in the fall.  When I say loaded, I mean loaded! The berries last throughout the fall and typically…

This is the first video update from the garden shed. Hopefully I’ll be able to add more videos to The Home Garden over time include how-to’s and mini-garden tours! I hope you enjoy the look inside my messy construction and plant filled shed. Please be forgiving, as always it is a work in progress! http://www.youtube.com/embed/ZgrlCzP0-oQ

My garden is made up of a series of island garden beds. Each one is “designed” (I say that very loosely) to create the pathways that appear in between the gardens. To me a pathway is what really makes garden. A good path let’s you see everything there is to see, leads you down unexpected turns, and really enhances a…

Here are a few of the early March blooming flowers in my garden. Crocus, daffodil, and forsythia. The forsythias have burst into full bloom since the picture was taken!

Have you ever wondered “How do I separate those tiny seeds from the chaff?” It’s not hard and shouldn’t cost you a dime to remove all those tiny seeds. There are quite a few methods for separating the seeds from the chaff, this is just one possible method you might use. Take a used plastic container form your recycling bin….

My daughter and I recently did a little project. We took materials that were lying around the house and put together a mini-seed starting greenhouse. It was a simple and easy project to work on with my 3 and a half year old daughter. Read on to see what we did.Materials: Paper roll tubes, a rectangular tin foil pan, a…

This Saturday is the Middle Tennessee Plant Swap at Henry Horton Park. This is a fantastic opportunity to talk to other gardeners and exchange those extra plants you don’t need for some you do! If you haven’t already gotten your plants ready you should do that ASAP to give them time to recover from any potential plant shock. Exchanges aren’t…

Most people look at plant foliage and admire the wonderful variegation of the leaves or the shapes, but have you ever stopped to admire the multibranched vein patterns? If not take a look sometime when you are out in the garden or hiking in the woods. The veins form very unique patterns that whether follow the variegation or simply highlight…

Today while at my in-law’s house I made a few cuttings from one of their viburnums. I’m not entirely positive about the variety but I believe it is a Viburnum plicatum var. tomentosum.  Viburnums are beautiful flowering shrubs in the spring that have very few pest and disease problems. The fall color can be good too so you get a…

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

The Lion stalks through the underbrush. In search of his prey… He stops to inspect his surroundings, … ever aware, ever watchful…  he quickly and stealthily crosses the open spaces for cover, still on the hunt… close now to his prey, he stalks again behind the cover of the underbrush… and fertilizes!

Flowering of the Purple Homestead Verbena If you haven’t tried growing ‘Purple Homestead’ Verbena in your home garden you really should! I’ve used this purple flowering perennial in three places so far and can think of many more locations I would like to see them. ‘Purple Homestead’ has found homes in our landscape in the mailbox garden, our front garden,…

Rosemary is one of my favorite plants in the garden. This amazing evergreen herb is well known for fragrant aroma and culinary uses. Rosemary grows very will in a variety of conditions including pots, in gardens, in raised beds, or even indoors! You might be wondering “Can you propagate more rosemary from your garden?” Yes you can! In fact it’s…