Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

I was inspecting the Birdbath Garden the other day when a persistent buzzing sound became noticeable. I looked around a little closer and found this little bee happily buzzing among the stalks of the salvia. No wonder I like these plants! They are magnets for these happy little pollinators. This bee buzzed from stalk to stalk sampling all it had…

Here is the current list of seeds I have started so far. Only a few seedlings have popped up but more will come. It is still early and conditions outside are just now starting to warm up. I’m starting them in the garage under the cover of my mini-greenhouse and some plastic containers turned upside down as propagators. Spending $5.00…

By far my favorite plant from the vegetable garden is the tomato.  I don’t buy them from the stores if I can help it as there is very little flavor to be found in store bought tomatoes.  Fresh from the garden is how a tomato should be.  Today on a gray overcast winter day I’m looking back at the tomatoes…

Here’s another question for another Sunday! What are the best ornamental grasses in your garden? Ornamental grasses are great plants to use whether as a background or as a feature plant. There are all kinds of ornamental grasses to choose from; some are native and some exotic. In our garden we only have two varieties but I hope to add…

In this continuing series of edible landscaping we’re going to discuss more elements that should be in the sustainable edible landscape plan. In the last post we brought up the importance of good soil and water systems as well as having a good way to take care of pests.  If you’re new to this series of posts please check out…

The cutting bug is back, being spring and all. Everywhere I look I see another propagation project awaiting me. Some projects I’ve done before like the chrysanthemums and others are new experiments like the crape myrtles. Here’s what I did this Wednesday!Cut the grass! OK you may not have expected that one, but technically it IS a cutting.Butterfly Bush cuttings….

Migration isn’t just limited to the birds and the butterflies, it happens in the garden too.  We have about a month before the frost date here in Middle Tennessee (mid-October) and it’s time to move and divide the hostas in my garden.  Once that frost date comes the hosta leaves will fade away and the hostas will be harder to…

Last year I began to experiment with hybridizing.  I’m hoping that the plants I cross together result in something really nice but it takes a few years to get something from the crosses.  So far I’ve experimented with daylilies, echinacea, and irises.  Hostas are on my list but the deer keep getting to the flowers before they’ve had a chance…

If coleus (Solenostemon) is not the easiest plant cutting to root, then it must be ranked at the top of the plant propagator’s list right next to the willows. Here’s the process of rooting Coleus in water. Whether you want to multiply your coleus plants or save some cuttings indoors over the winter coleus can root very easily in water…

This week my family spent a few hours gathering and hauling rock from our home construction site. When we bought the property we knew that were were “gifted” with lots of rock on the site but the amount of rock is really much more than we imagined. Surface rock was visible in many areas of the property. Rock can be…

I propagated plants! Propagating is a great way to increase your landscape plants cheaply. What could be better than cheap plants? This was the first summer I seriously experimented with rooting cuttings. Some plants can be propagated by division, some by stem and tip cuttings and others by root cuttings. What I did was mostly the stem and tip cutting…

This was definitely the year for trying new melons, at least here at The Home Garden. Yesterday I showed you the ‘Tigger’ melon we grew and tasted, today let’s welcome ‘Old Time Tennessee’ to the blog! Where the ‘Tigger’ melon is small, compact, and tasty ‘Old Time Tennessee’ is large, football shaped (perfect for football season), and tasty.  You will…

Mowed the lawn – check. Weeded the shed gardens – check. Weeded the sitting wall garden – check. Weeded and mulched the mailbox garden – check. Weeded the corner shade garden – check – kind of. Weeded the birdbath garden without a birdbath – check – kind of. Cut back a ‘Powis Castle’ artemisia that was long and leggy –…

There are very few gardens I know of that don’t have some sort of wind chime.  Wind chimes add an extra audio element to the garden as well as a touch of whimsy.  There is quite a variety of wind chimes to choose from out there and it all depends on what you like.  Recently Windchimesonline.net sent me three bamboo…

Recently I purchased a copy of The Market Gardener written by the Canadian organic farmer Jean-Martin Fortier. As soon as I read the description I was immediately interested in its contents. The Market Gardener explains how to raise enough crops on just 1.5 acres of land to make a full time income and support one’s family. Amazon Aff. With my…

Some days it’s good to go outside and stare off into the cosmos. As you gaze you begin to wonder what’s out there in the cosmos? Is there life to be found somewhere out in the cosmos? Not here, but we’ll keep looking. Maybe here, we should look a little closer… What do we have here? There is definitely something…

Birch tree cutting from a cutting taken in summer Have you ever wanted to try propagating birch trees from cuttings? The river birch is definitely worth propagating for your garden for many reasons. First of all birch trees can be rooted! While I’ve tried propagating several kinds trees unsuccessfully (like maples ~ seeds: no problem ~ cuttings: not so good…

This week my daughter and I put together a couple more raised beds in the garden. They aren’t exactly what I planned to do in the vegetable garden layout that I made a couple months ago but the addition of the extra beds has definitely improved over the layout I had last year, at least in terms of space. They…