Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

All of us experienced gardeners can tell you, you are going to make mistakes!  It’s inevitable.  No matter how much planning or forethought you put into your garden you WILL make a mistake!  How’s that for thinking positively?  You positively will make a mistake, and you know what?  That’s OK!  We’ve all done it – albeit some more than others…

On Saturday I purchased most of the vegetable seeds that we plan on growing for this season. We are dividing seeds with my parents since neither of us need all the seeds this year. The raised beds still need to be assembled but the wood is in the garage just waiting to be used. We also bought some herb and…

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…

It’s that time of the year again. That time when I go out and take cuttings of everything I can. For today’s post I took 6 cuttings of a ‘Husker’s Red’ Penstemon (Penstemon digitalis) and 6 cuttings of Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia). I picked up the ‘Husker’s Red’ Penstemon on the discount racks last year just as it was losing…

Layering an arrowwood viburnum I really enjoy making new plants – you guessed that by now didn’t you? Most of the time I prefer to make stem cuttings of various types of plants whether shrub, tree, perennial, or annual but that isn’t always the easiest way. In many ways layering a plant is the simplest way to ensure a successful…

This past weekend was a big work weekend for me.  Not only did I tackled the paths on the garden but I had a couple other projects in mind to accomplish.  One of which was our Birdbath Garden expansion.  This project is also a small memorial garden for our cat Amber who passed away in December. This is how the…

Over the weekend I planted an ‘October Glory’ maple tree. I chose this tree as one of my first fall plantings of 2025 for a several reasons. One of those reasons was a little sentimental. You see when my wife and I bought our first home an ‘October Glory’ was the first tree we planted there. We wanted a nice…

By far my most favorite shrub is the viburnum. I’m working on collecting as many as I can, either through propagation or buying them, to fill in areas around our gardens. If you don’t have a viburnum in your garden you really should plant at least one or two. Some are fragrant, some are evergreen, and they are great for…

We managed to accomplish a little more on the greenhouse project this week. We ran into a small roadblock when we botched putting together the roofline and had to take the rafters down to reattach them to the center beam. I was trying to do things in a simple and easy way which turned out to be complicated and difficult,…

Plant propagation can continue at almost every time of the year, the winter is no exception. This is especially true if you have a little space in your house to put your cuttings or can manage to manipulate them into interesting centerpieces! In this post you will see how to propagate Leyland cypress from cuttings. A Brief Bit About Leyland…

Recently my mom had her bathroom remodeled. In the process she replaced on of her bathroom vanities and I thought that it might make a good workstation for my many DIY and Garden projects. I’m very pleased with the result which now will provide a clean solid work top, cabinet space, a pegboard area for tools, and best of all…

There are some plants that are tricky to propagate but stevia isn’t one of them! In fact stevia is very easy to root from cuttings. Read on to learn more about propagating stevia from cuttings! Why Would You Want to Propagate Steve from Cuttings? Stevia rebaudiana is an herb often used as a substitute sweetener for sugar.  It isn’t reliably…

Our garden sits precariously between zone 6b and 7.  We’re in a very borderline area with multiple micro-climates within the 1.3 acres of land we have around us.  We’re far enough into the warm season now that the frosts should not happen again until fall, but then we thought we were done with frosts over a month ago! This weekend…

When creating any kind of garden plan one of the most important considerations is the amount of light the garden receives. Vegetable gardens and ornamental gardens are both affected significantly by the amount of light in the garden. Light changes two major aspects to your garden design: first the amount of light in the garden changes the plant selections and…

Well it had to happen. More insects have attacked the plants in my garden. My second year hollyhocks are the lastest victims of an insect known as the cabbage looper. Eventhough their name is cabbage looper that doesn’t mean they will stop there. They like all sorts plants in the crucifer group like broccoli, collards, kale, and cauliflower as well…

Not many plants bloom in the dead of winter but you can count on Mediterranean White Heath (Erica x darleyensis) to put on a subtle show.  It blooms with tiny little snow colored blossoms that (at least in my Tennessee garden) emerge during January and February.  I have five of these little winter gems located throughout our front garden and…

Before you really get into producing plants for sale it is very important to come up with a way to get the plants to the customers.  I don’t have a place where costumers could just come by and browse the plants since I do all my production from my own garden.  One day perhaps, but I needed to come up…

With every project comes some challenges. The biggest challenge for our backyard remodel and patio project was what to do with the septic line area since one of the most important things to remember with any major project is to avoid the utilities as best as you can. Unfortunately in our case the builder of our home did not put…