Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Seen here is one plant I wish had the ideal location for it to grow. Ideal location you ask? OK maybe I’m putting words in your head but let me add an image too. Think shade, think moist, think well drained, think shade garden. I don’t have that place…yet. This little plant was planted in a nearly ideal location in…

My gardens haven’t seen any rain for several weeks now.  The grass is brown and I even commented to my daughter that it sounds like crunchy snow.  Of course the reality couldn’t be further from the truth – it’s hot!  No snowball could survive in our back yard today with temperatures expected to rise into the triple digits.  Droughts do…

Next week I’ll be starting my seed sowing and I wanted to invite all other bloggers to join in to share their experiences. Each Saturday we’ll post about what we’ve done with our seeds, what we’ve selected, what we’ve planted, and how it’s doing. From sowing to growing it’s all fair-game! What can we talk about? seed selection how you…

Saturday was one of those days that you had to be outside.  Sunny and in the 70’s the weather was nothing less than pure perfection. It was truely a spring weather day.  The kind of day that you take in from dawn until dusk without ever wanting to come back inside.  All days end but this one was a good…

As yesterday we saw more and more fall color from the south in Virginia and Tennessee today brings us more proof that fall is here in the Southern U.S.. SC Gardener has fall foliage that is well worth a look! One post entitled Fall Color Isn’t Just for Trees: Shrubs With Fall Leaf Color gives us a look at the…

I really have to admit that despite the cold temperatures, snowfall, and generally crummy weather I’ve had a good week in the garden. Not my real garden, my virtual one. The garden that sits inside this black box next to my desk. Gail mentioned it too in her recent post. Times like these garden bloggers resort to old photos of…

The tomatoes are doing great! They have a strong healthy start in our seed starting area. I planted them a week and a half  ago and many of the seedlings are now getting their true leaves.  As the roots start to emerge from the peat pellets I’ll transplant them deeply into individual pots.  Deep planting is the best way to…

It occurred to me today that I’ve been writing this blog, The Home Garden for over two years. I completely missed the second year mark, which happened last week while I was totally immersed Fall Color Projects and the greenhouse project. Two years of blogging has past and has been a ton of fun. In two years I’ve published 858…

I’ve been working on establishing my bird bath garden over the last couple days. I’ll show you the results soon but I thought I would show you the layout of the garden first. I’ve chosen plants that both the birds and the butterflies will enjoy for their diets. Of course the main reason I selected the plants was I liked…

Trees serve as the backbone of the garden. Trees add structure and height, clean the air, filter water, prevent soil erosion, provide shade and can be a habitat for wildlife. If you have ever sat beneath a maple tree in the heat of summer and enjoyed the cool shade it provided you understand the value of that tree. To me…

Are there any other Tennessee garden bloggers out there? I found one yesterday courtesy of Nan at Gardening Gone Wild. If you have a chance go visit Frances over at Faire Gardening over in east Tennessee. If you are a Tennessee garden blogger let me know and I’ll add you to the roll!

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,…

In my latest YouTube video I went through and checked on many of the plants I’ve taking cuttings from this summer. There are a variety of plants in the video including rosemary, ninebark, fothergilla, boxwoods, crape myrtle, and cherry laurels. This was actually the first time I’ve tried rooting fothergilla and I had pretty good success taking a few small…

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!

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…

Over Thanksgiving we spent some time in Mt. Juliet at my in-laws home. I always enjoy traipsing around the woods near their house just to explore. I did that often as a kid at my grandfather’s house and I’ve always been fond of spending time in the great outdoors. Often I come home with rocks for my garden borders but…

I’m sure you’ve heard about Pinterest by now.  If you’re like me you may have thought “that’s just another online time waster.” Or if you’re a guy maybe you thought “that’s just for women!” Well I’ll admit it, those were my first thoughts.  Then I began to see people using it and sharing things from it on Facebook or Twitter….

One of the plants I was looking for at the plant swap this weekend was sedum. We have a small area between our driveway and our sidewalk that I want to convert into a sedum bed. We already had three varieties of sedum (‘Blue Spruce’, ‘Autumn Joy’, and another unidentified sedum) and we wanted a few more to add to…