Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Trees are the anchors of our landscapes. They enrich the soil, provide oxygen, offer shelter and food for wildlife, and deliver incredible seasonal beauty. My goal is to diversify our property by replacing invasive plants with a variety of beautiful, beneficial trees and shrubs. In two of my more recent videos, I discussed planting over ten different types of tree…

It is inevitable. You will find a weed somewhere in your lawn or in your garden.  As things begin to grow this spring you’ll notice weeds coming up where you don’t want them.  In fact that is the general definition of a weedy plant – a plant that grows where you don’t want it!  Any plant can become weedy but some have…

Here are the flowers I gave my wife for Valentine’s Day. I like to give flowers that you can plant in the garden when they are done blooming. It seems wasteful to just buy a bouquet and let them fade away. Once the weather is warm enough I’ll but them outside where we can enjoy them next spring.Here are the…

It’s no secret I like salvia in the garden. It’s easy to grow and hardy here in Tennessee. Most importantly it never fails to produce great blooms. The foliage is nice but nothing spectacular, however today I saw something very interesting. It happens every now and then on various plants and is responsible for the creation of many variegated varieties,…

It’s not the greenhouse, at least not today or tomorrow. Over the last couple years (yes I said years) my father and I have been working on a project in his backyard. It began as a patio in the middle of their yard where they could enjoy their backyard spaces and gradually grew into a patio covered with a pavilion…

Before I began building my greenhouse shed I did some research into what makes a good greenhouse. Among many important aspects like positioning (for ideal sun), materials, and passive heating I learned that a porous surface for flooring is essential. It makes sense, plants need water – plants will drip water, it has to go somewhere! In my greenhouse shed…

I often heard stories from people about their gardening experience when they were children.  Usually the story has something to do with the person being forced to pull mountains of weeds. The quickest way for kids to lose their interest in gardening is to force them to do laborious and monotonous tasks, like weeding. When asked which garden task we…

This Friday I thought I’d try something new…an open post!  I’d like to hear what you think about the garden, gardening ideas, projects, or just your thoughts on various issues.  So here’s what I’m going to do.  Every couple weeks I’ll host a Friday Free for All Post where you can comment on a subject and share what you think…

Much of the time I find myself wandering around the garden with a new plant in hand just trying to find a good home. It usually happens as a result of an impulse buy or a plant swap/present that I wasn’t really counting on getting. Sometimes I see the plant and think “that would look good over there by the…”…

This past Sunday I asked a for some inspiration on perennials for fall plantings. Here is a summary of what people suggested. I’ve simplified this post to show only the specific perennials themselves but those who commented offered some great ideas for where to use these perennials and some other options like trees and shrubs so please go back and…

I hope you have had a fantastic week in the garden and Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms! I hope you have a wonderful day today! For this post I wanted to simply sum up what went on the garden this week. Most of the content this week was on my YouTube Channel which you can subscribe to here:…

We had a short reprieve from the cold winter temperatures we’ve been having.  It reached nearly 70 degrees  and we actually saw the sun for the first time in days. It felt good to be outside this afternoon tending to some minor garden chores. My first task was to pot up some more Purple leaf plums (Prunus cerasifera) that had…

Last year I came up with a layout for our vegetable garden that I later decided wasn’t as effective as I hoped. This year I made a better raised bed layout that focused more on the convenience of the gardener and it is working great! The central path makes getting around a breeze and the smaller paths around each bed…

This morning I attended the Middle Tennessee Plant Swap at Henry Horton State Park. If you’ve never been to a plant swap before you really should consider going to at least one. It’s a fantastic way to expand the plant varieties in your garden on the extremely cheap side. The concept is simple, bring any extra plants you have to…

Even though I’ve been fairly quiet recently about my plant propagation efforts I’m still working on several things.  Many of my cuttings I do indoors and keep away from the cold winter weather.  Very soon I’ll go and take cuttings from the evergreens but for now here’s what I’ve rooted recently. Confirmed rooted: Japanese Dappled Willows (Salix integra) – I…

Being mid-November there isn’t much to show for blooms. We’ve had several light frosts and a couple hard freezes which for the most part silences the perennials and annuals that worked so hard for us during the growing season. But there is always something worth looking at in the garden! Like these pansies in the front garden. The salvia by…

In my last post on the garden shed page I mentioned that I would show you in two parts the plantings. Well…I’m afraid I may have to expand that to three, we’ll see! After taking some pictures today and on previous days I’m happily astounded by the neat stuff I’m seeing. Please don’t take that as bragging since most of…

Spring is hitting us full force right now in mid April. Flowers are blooming everywhere! The mailbox garden is covered in spring time flowers and in just about every other garden is a spot of color to talk about. This post is plant and garden photo heavy so be prepared! April Blooms in the Mailbox Garden We’ll start the garden…