Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

It’s a sure sign of fall when the goldenrod stands tall! These tall golden yellow plumes rise above most of the native grasses in our naturalized side yard. Unfortunately for this beautiful perennial flower it is commonly mistaken for a more insidious vegetative villain, ragweed. When you sneeze in the fall it isn’t goldenrod causing your problems. Ragweed is the…

Many people have patios with permeable materials like sand and pea gravel in the cracks. These patios are open invitations for weeds that decide to drop in and make themselves at home in those cracks! It doesn’t take anymore than a seed to sprout an annoyingly hard weed to pull out. There are many methods that will work to clean…

Yellow is a color that just seems to brighten things up. It’s like bringing  a little sunshine to the earth and into the garden. Most of my yellow plants love soaking up the sun which is great since shade in my garden is extremely limited. Today I’m showing you 3 of the yellow perennials from my garden (achillea, coreopsis, and…

The daylilies (Hemerocallis) have begun their summer show appropriately on the unofficial start of summer, Memorial Day. Maybe the lilies felt the need to pay tribute to all of our country’s veterans as we all should. These showy flowers are well known for their bountiful blooming abilities. Each flower only lasts a short period of time, about a day (imagine…

The seeds are sprouting pretty good so far. I need to get some pictures taken of them but haven’t had the time this week to do much. I have inspected them daily waiting eagerly for the next little green baby plant to say “hello!” I was getting a little bit of damping off but I took care of it with…

A springtime flowering favorite of mine is the Yoshino cherry tree (Prunus x yedoensis).  I’ve written about these trees several times in the past and I know I’ll write about it again as it is such a valuable tree in the landscape for it’s ornamental beauty. I’ve never been able to root this tree…until now!  A couple months ago I…

Usually when I buy plants for the garden I buy smaller 1 gallon pots and wait (sometimes for years) for the trees grow up. But occasionally, I want something that has a more immediate impact. I recently splurged $200 on a 7 foot tall ‘Sango Kaku’ Japanese Maple (also known as the Coral Bark Maple). Here’s why I think this…

We’ve talked about how to pick your seeds and we’ve talked a little about the soil to use, but when should you start your seeds?  This is when good planning comes into play.  You want your seeds ready to go when it’s safe to plant but you don’t want to start them too early, so how do you figure that? …

The herb garden will be a new experience for me. In the past I have used pots for the herbs, this year I’ll see what I can do with the in-ground Herb Garden I have planned (Herb Garden Layout). Most of the plants will be from seed but not all! Here is what we decided on for the herb garden:Basil…

Irises! when you think of springtime, do you think of irises? Of course I’m sure you think of all kinds of flowering plants, bulbs, and trees but irises are distinct. They offer a variety of colors, of shapes, and sizes to decorate the spring garden. The irises in my garden have recently begun to color our gardens with their displays…

I know, it’s early to start seed but I have a plan and just couldn’t resist. Inside of a walk-in closet I put up a grow light and suspended it about 12-14 inches above the seed starting spot. The lights are 48″ fluorescent shop lights that I used last year to start my seedlings. I even made a little light…

Just what you want right?  Even more things to do in the garden.  I’m sure you have everything perfect.  Everything is mulched to 2 inches high.  Every weed is pulled and the gardens are in pristine condition!  Not our garden, not even close! An extra long weekend is ahead which (unless you’ve been deluged with rain from Isaac) will give…

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!

I think in many ways March is the busiest month in the garden. So many chores need tackled this time of year from mulching to pruning to planting that sometimes it’s hard to figure out what to tackle first! Among the major chores like lawn mower servicing and tree planting there are quite a few little chores.  Like trimming back…

During the wonderful yet wacky weather yesterday I accomplished several chores and started a few others! What do you think this hole is for? It is about ten feet across and five feet wide at its widest. I dug the hole about 18 inches deep at its deepest point and about 12 inches in the upper part, but the digging…

This week has been eventful. I haven’t been able to post much about the garden due to the happenings here but I did want to catch everyone up on how things are growing.  Here’s a quick update on the garden. The beans are climbing the bamboo trellis I put together.  I gathered it up from a roadside where someone had…

This summer there will be another wedding in the family. My wife’s brother will be getting married to his longtime girlfriend on July 12th. What does this have to do with gardening? The ceremony is going to be help at my in-laws house in their backyard and I will need to help plan the landscaping for the area surrounding the…

Last week I attended the Nashville Lawn and Garden Show.  I’ve been very busy planting seeds and getting the garden ready and I haven’t had a lot of time to post lately so I thought I would share a few short posts with your from the show that had some clever design ideas that you may want to consider for…