Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

This week is the Nashville Lawn and Garden Show!  For those of us here in TN this is a great opportunity to go out and take care of that gardening fix after a long cold winter.  There are always some interesting ideas to be found in the displays so make sure you bring a camera!  Here are some photos from…

How about a fall foliage trip to Bethlehem? Bethlehem, PA that is! Yet another example of fine Pennsylvania foliage is on display with photos taken from Penn’s Peak by Marie at Garden in Bethlehem PA. Oaks, maples, locusts and all kinds of other trees are coating the hills like paint on a canvas.Kylee of Our Little Acre has fall colors….

Yesterday MeemsNYC asked me in the comment section of my What Would Thanksgiving Be Without the Nuts? Plant them of course! I gathered up a small box of acorns and brought them home with me from my in-law’s house. You’re probably wondering why would he gather up a bunch of acorns to plant when they self sow readily on their…

Coleus (Solenostemon now Plectranthus scutellarioides) is one of those lucky annuals that can be saved from a merciless death by frost and freeze. Coleus, which is actually a tropical perennial, can be kept indoors as a house plant then replanted outside in the spring once all danger of frost is past. Take Some Cuttings Just clip off some cuttings with a…

Through a moment of lazy logic I decided to defy conventional perennial pruning practice. Decided is the wrong word…perhaps forgot to would be better! I even posted about the proper way to take care of mums including pruning several weeks ago when the mums were fading. Did I do what I said? Nope, sure didn’t. Now I think that I…

One little seed starting trick I have in my bag of gardening tricks is to start seeds in plastic cup greenhouses!  I shared a picture of seed starting in my mini-greenhouses about 2 weeks ago on my Facebook page and I thought today I would share with you the progress of the seedlings. Plastic cups are an easy and effective…

Late this winter (or early this spring) I was contacted to try out some of John and Bob’s Organic Soil Amendments.  They have a variety of different formulations that contain humus, beneficial minerals, and microbes that help the soil do what it does best – feed the plants!  They sent me several things to test and I fully intended to…

The Bradford Pear tree (Pyrus calleryana), sure it looks nice but it’s one tree that people should stay away from planting in their yard. At first glance you might wonder “why shouldn’t I plant a Bradford pear tree?” They have a great shape, they grow fast, and they flower profusely in the spring. Unfortunately for the homeowners who plant the…

Here in zone 7 spring is showing signs of emergence. Daffodils are beginning to bloom, crocuses are popping up, and the weather is teasing us with 70 degree days (immediately following 4 inches of snow and 10 degree weather!) It’s time to seriously get ready for gardening! With that being said here is a list of things to do for…

If you are like me I didn’t know the answer to that question a couple years ago. It’s a strange concept when you stop to think about it. How can you claim sole proprietorship for something that is alive? It seems strange but when you consider it more it can begin to make sense.First of all what exactly is a…

This week I went to my mom’s house to do a little digging.  Back in the late spring we noticed small butterfly bush seedlings beginning to sprout in the pathway’s of her vegetable garden. As they grew large enough to transplant the weather became hot and transplanting wasn’t a great idea. Then my father passed away and just about everything…

It appears that our local deer population has undergone a small expansion with the addition of a new fawn. Lately the deer have been keeping to the outskirts of the yard and haven’t been bothering the vegetable garden or any of our plants. Many of the plants in the other gardens have scented foliage and are considered deer resistant. The…

The other day I posted about the next evolution of my garden on its way to becoming a more formalized vegetable garden. Today I’ll show you the layout of what I hope the vegetable garden will eventually become. There are some distinct advantages to the layout changes that I am planning on making that I’ll share with you below the…

While stuck indoors over the last several days because of the cold weather I thought perhaps designing a couple vegetable garden layouts might be a fun use of my time. This particular vegetable garden design fits into the classic parterre layout. A vegetable garden with the parterre garden design would easily lend itself to a good crop rotation plan with…

Tonight Middle Tennessee is resting peacefully beneath a blanket of snow. Bitter cold set in here as it has in much of the eastern United States.  With the cold came swirling winds and all this white stuff.  So far this winter cold we’ve been experiencing is about 20 degrees below the normal averages for our region. December has been extremely…

Last year I told you about the Japanese maples that grew naturally from underneath a tree at my parent’s house. I over wintered young trees in my garden shed (see the April Video update) and have been taking care of them here in our garden. The other day I transferred the Japanese maple seedlings from the shed because it was…

Spring is coming. Really.Signs of the coming gardening season are beginning to appear all over from the daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths beginning to emerge to the swelling buds on the trees. Very soon warmer weather will begin again and we will be fully emersed in the garden once again. In anticipation of the coming gardening season I thought I’d give…

Are you looking for something, anything to keep you going until spring time?  Are you frantically searching the garden for signs of life?  Here are two early signs to look for that will tell you spring is just around the corner! The daffodils are rising!  The foliage of daffodils always comes up early but these are especially early.  This photo…