Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Low maintenance and hard working, it’s hard to go wrong with zinnias in the home garden! Zinnias have colors cover nearly any shade you could ask for in the spectrum. There are even varieties with multiple colors although I don’t have any of those in my garden. Zinnias are extremely easy to cultivate and just need a little water to…

I’ve always loved shade gardens.  Foliage plants like hostas and heucheras are two of my favorite types of plants and I just don’t have enough space in my yard for them.  The other issue I have is deer.  They’ve eaten many of my plants over the years.  They love sampling a little bit of everything in the garden and there…

Last week I put together a couple flats of shade garden plants that I’m attempting to grow from seed.  I’ve had pretty good success before with my heucheras and thought I would give a few other shade plants a try!  A couple years ago I intended (but never got around to) to begin sowing shade garden plants and began saving…

I really like using rock and stone in the garden. I’ve used rocks and stone for two main uses: as stepping stones or as borders. I prefer natural stones that have a rough hewn look. I like the irregular forms, the variety, and the general natural quality of the stones. The problem is the perfect flat stones are not readily…

I’m a big fan of foliage! There is no better time of the year than autumn for those who love foliage, and naturally fall is one of my favorite times of the year. I thought I would share with you some photos I have taken over the last month of the foliage from my garden. Tennessee often has amazing fall…

As previously mentioned in my 2009 garden project list I am working on a self sowing garden. I mentioned the advantages to a self sowing garden earlier in the week and my own personal reasons for wanting to plant it and now it’s time for the next step…seeds. But first, what are self sowing plants? Since plants generally reproduce from…

This week marked the return of warm temperatures to Tennessee. Last Sunday was beautiful, the kind of day you can wear short sleeve shirts and start thinking about grilling out. Monday was even better then the rains came but the warmth was still there. This weekend brings us to a little cold front that tagged along with the rains or…

We all know about compost.  It’s important, perhaps the most important thing we do as gardeners for our plants.  Organic matter is critical for plants to get nutrients.  It’s also extremely helpful as a waste disposal system.  Rather than throw away your biodegradable wastes from the kitchen you can compost it and use it later for the garden.  Composting makes…

This formerly beautiful coreopsis that I raised from seed last year was nearly completely devoured by leaf beetle larvae.  I don’t know enough about insects to identify which species of leaf beetle it is but I am positive it is a Calligrapha. The damage is pretty devastating. The leaves are spotted with holes and very few leaves have escaped untouched….

Imagine my puzzlement when I glanced at one of my two spireas and saw empty branches. This was a plant that was flushing out with its reddish amber to golden leaves just a couple days ago. The leaves around the tips were completely intact but some of the stems were nearly naked. What caused this damage? Aphids! What do Aphids…

Have you ever wondered what the inside of a dogwood (Cornus florida) seed looks like?  If you read yesterday’s Name that Seed post you caught a glimpse of some dogwood seeds that were cleaned off by the birds.  Many birds enjoy eating the berries that form on flowering trees.  In this case the bird ate the fleshy outer covering of…

My last post about the brick floor only had a small portion of the garden shed covered with bricks. I’ve made a little progress since then and have complete exhausted my supply of free bricks. I’ve been looking for more but so far I’ve come up empty handed. I’m pleased with how it’s turning out at this point but really…

Last week I was in one of the home improvement stores and started wandering the gardening shelves…always a dangerous thing! I looked around at all the packaged plants which in most cases are way too early to plant out and got sucked in by the displays. I ended up coming home with one Arapaha thornless blackberry plant. I love blackberry…

Recently on Facebook in a group I am a part of someone posted about a plant they didn’t know after discovering that her daughter ate some of the fruit. I can imagine the fear that must be in her mind. I have 5 children and would panic as well if one of them ingested something that could be a poison….

If you’re out in your vegetable garden and see big, honking caterpillars like this, you need to remove them from your tomato plants as quickly as possible. These are hornworms and they can be very devesatting to your tomato plants. There are two main hornworm that tend to show up on our tomato plants: the tomato hornworm and the tobacco…

I had a very productive weekend! It’s been a while since I spent so much time outdoors and despite the heat, the sun, the sweat, and big case of farmer’s tan a bunch of chores were accomplished. One surprise though was my potatoes. The potato bed was overrun with Bermuda grass as I mentioned the other day but even before…

This could be a tense question for all those opinionated gardeners out there but which should you pick, native or exotic plants? There are definitely advantages to choosing native plants with tolerance to the climate being first and foremost. Natives are better for the indigenous wildlife as it provides the food and sustenance they are used to eating.Exotic plants are…

Yesterday’s post had many of the colorful plants I planted around the garden shed today’s post may be less colorful but hopefully still interesting! First let’s start off with a small stepping stone pathway. I bought some cheap 12″x12″ stepping stones to lay down for this little pathway. To the left of the pathway is an area that still needs…