Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Here is one of our coreopsis plants with it’s blooming like dozens of little yellow and red suns. I’ve recently discovered two small pots that have between 10-15 coreopsis seedlings in each of them. The rain garden I built will probably be a recipient of several as will the vegetable garden perennial ring.And a close-up picture with some rain drops…

This week I started another batch of tomato seeds. For the last set of tomato seeds I used peat seed starting trays, this time I used washed mushroom containers, yogurt cups, and an old refrigerator plastic drawer! Not too long ago our refrigerator decided to quit and we had to replace it. I kept the plastic drawers from the old…

The legumes are one awesome vegetable family (Leguminosae).  Really, they are!  Legumes are essential to any crop rotation plan because of one major trait: legumes are nitrogen fixers!  What does that mean?  It means that legumes have an amazing ability to take nitrogen from the air and change it into a form usable by plants.  But it’s not really the…

Sometimes looking at plants from above just makes you think of more winter, more cold, more rain, more sleet , more snow… ‘Autumn Joy’ Sedum – seed heads …but if you look underneath you just might find a little bit more to look forward to! ‘Autumn Joy’ Sedum – sprouting Greenhouse Update: I completed some work with some concrete blocks…

It’s been while since I showed larger scale pictures of the garden.  Mostly because it was such a mess over the summer. Today I’ll share a few photos of the various garden areas.  The resiliency of plants is simply amazing. With neglect, wet weather, dry weather, hot weather, and lack of time my plants seem to be doing fine! The…

Denise from Southern California has another great Fall Color Project post for us!  You might think that her region may not have much fall color to offer, but if you look you’ll find it!  Just take a glance at the muhlenbergia in full bloom, the ginko trees, or the sweetgum and you’ll see the fall color that comes to Southern California….

While we were out of town this past weekend we visited one of my wife’s aunts. She has a custom built log cabin in the woods surrounded by her garden. Since her property is very shady one of the most prominent plants in her garden is her hydrangeas. She has several kinds of hydrangeas that I’ll show you in a…

One of the keys to attracting pollinators is to plant what they like. That means providing plants that give the pollinators food and shelter for all stages of development. Monarch butterflies one pollinator that can benefit from planting milkweed but there are many other insects and creatures that can benefit from the perennial. Also please keep in mind that milkweed…

Here is the view from one cold January morning in Tennessee. The thermometer read 8.7 degrees Fahrenheit at 7:00 AM this morning. I looked outside and the sky was showing this captivating display. Feathery white clouds are wisping around while the the peaking sun shines through the skeletal trees. Sometimes cold mornings make the best pictures!

Last year at a meeting of the Tennessee Garden Blogger Society (this does not officially exist but it seemed appropriate!) Gail brought some plant goodies to share. One of which was her Practically Perfect Pink Phlox. It’s now officially made its presence known in our garden. Thanks Gail!

I’ve talked a lot about raised beds over the years here and there’s no doubt that I’m a fan but are raised beds perfect for everybody?  Does everyone need a raised bed? Should you used raised beds in your garden? Anyone could utilize raised beds to have a great garden, but you don’t have to have raised beds for an…

I would like to thank Roben Mounger (AKA Ms. Cook) for the great write up on her culinary blog Ms. Cook’s Table! I would also like to welcome any new visitors from the Columbia Daily Herald who found me because of her article. I hope you find something that interests you in this visit, if not keep checking back I…

No matter where I go when I see seeds that are ripe I’m tempted to collect them. That was the case when walking around Knoxville last year and seeing some ripe magnolia seeds on some Sweetbay magnolia plants. Sweetbay magnolias have several names including: sweetbay magnolia, laurel magnolia, swamp magnolia, white bay magnolia, (simply) bay magnolia, or even beaver tree….

I did several little things in the garden this week that weren’t worthy of individual posts but when grouped together give me a little something to talk about.  Planted seeds for rudbeckia ‘Cappuccino’, gaillardia ‘Arizona Sun’, Verbena bonariensis, mixed heucheras, Panicum virgatum. Constructed a suspended staking system out of fallen poplar branches for our sugar snap peas.  I’ll go into…

Finally the major air gap that lurked just beneath the roof line has been enclosed and trimmed up. It’s not air tight yet and needs sealing but the major 3.5 inch x 16 foot gaps are no longer open on the sides of the greenhouse. I’m not ready to open the champagne yet but I feel like a major weight…

But there’s a such thing as too hot! This weekend has been miserably hot. The temperatures have raced each morning to break above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Three days now in a row of triple digit temperatures are doing their best to put an early end to the garden. To make things worse the last rain we had was about a…

This Garden Blogger fall Color Project Post is all about New Autumn, that is Autumn in New England and New York! If you travel to upstate New York to visit Kerri’s Garden at Colors of the Garden (a very appropriate name, don’t you think?) you will get a grand tour of the New York Countryside in October. Peak colors of…

This spring has brought us a ton of rain but has also made things really nice for flowering. There are so many things in bloom right now that I may have to save a few for a future post. It’s time to get started then! To the left is out tulip poplar tree in bloom. Catmint ‘Walker’s Low’ is one…