Coral Bark Japanese Maple – Overview of the ‘Sango Kaku’ Maple
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…
Stunning Flowers and Foliage: Why the Onondaga Viburnum is a Must-Have!
If there is one shrub I would recommend to every home gardener for spring color, it’s the ‘Onondaga’ Viburnum (Viburnum sargentii ‘Onondaga’). This spring our ‘Onondaga’ viburnum is just beginning to put on it’s seasonal show, and it’s awesome! In the spring its most notable…
15 Gardening Tasks for April!
April is an amazing time of year to get in the garden. The weather is better, the soil is warming up, and the plants are coming alive from their winter rest. April is the time of year when gardeners need to be going full speed…
March Gardening To-Do List: Getting Ready for Spring in Zone 7
March is a awesome month here in Middle Tennessee for gardeners. Zone 7, this is the time to shift from planning to actually getting in the garden. I’ve been out in my front garden tackling some essential chores to ensure a productive and beautiful growing…
Ice and Trees: Can Your Trees Recover?
Ice and trees do not mix well. A fact that we’re seeing all over Tennessee. The recent ice storm that barraged the state left people all over in varying states. A lot of people lost power due to fallen trees and ice. A lot of…
Stop Losing Cuttings! 10 Tips for Success with Hardwood Cuttings
Have you tried rooting hardwood cuttings only to have them rot or fail to grow? Don’t give up just yet. Hardwood propagation is one of the most rewarding ways to grow your garden for free, but there are a few “make or break” steps that…
32 Plants You Can Propagate from Hardwood Cuttings
Hardwood cuttings are cuttings that are taken from trees and shrubs that are fully mature, dormant stems. These cuttings are normally taken during the late fall or over winter several weeks before spring growth will begin. Hardwood cuttings differ from softwood or semi-hardwood cuttings. While…
Starting Tree Seeds Outdoors: A Simple Guide to Diverse Landscapes
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…
How to Start Tree and Shrub Seeds in the Fall (Seed Prep)
Fall is the perfect time to start preparing tree and shrub seeds that need a period of cold weather before they’ll sprout. When seed starting tree and shrub seeds I use two techniques that help to trigger better germination rates. The first technique is simply…
American Beautyberry – Callicarpa americana
Every so often, I come across a plant I’ve been hunting for and I get pretty excited. That was the case this week when I finally tracked down American Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) a native shrub that’s been on my wish list for quite a while….
With Dogwood Tree Cuttings Shorter Cuttings Work Best
A couple months ago I managed to root a dogwood tree from cuttings. Only 1 of 3 cuttings rooted but I still considered it a success. After all it was the first time I had managed to root a dogwood tree from a cutting. You…
‘October Glory’ Maple Tree (Acer rubrum)
Over the weekend I planted an ‘October Glory’ maple tree. I chose this tree as one of my first fall plantings of 2025 for a several reasons. One of those reasons was a little sentimental. You see when my wife and I bought our first…
Thank you for visiting Growing The Home Garden! I started Growing The Home Garden in 2007 as a way to chronicle my experiences in the garden.
All the content here is based on my personal experiences and research. A lot of my content is focused on raised bed gardening and plant propagation.
There is also a YouTube Channel for Growing the Home Garden which is over 38,000 subscribers (as of March 2024) that has a lot of gardening videos you may find helpful. Growing The Home Garden on YouTube. Thanks for reading and watching!
Raised Bed Gardening
How Deep do Raised Garden Beds Need To Be?
Raised beds are a great option for gardeners but how deep do they really need to be? The depth of a raised garden bed is an important factor to consider because it can greatly impact the health and productivity of your plants. The true answer to How deep do raised gardens need to be really is it depends! What the…
Raised Bed Garden Ideas (Planning for the New Garden)
Pretty soon we’ll be relocating to our new home. Our family is very excited about this but it also means starting the garden all over again. Everything including raised beds, sheds, and arbors will have to be rebuilt. While this is a tremendous amount of work I think it’s a great opportunity to start again and redevelop our garden with…
How to Fill Raised Beds Cheap!
I love gardening in raised beds. It is one of the simplest ways to have success with a vegetable garden. That doesn’t take anything away from all the other methods of gardening, only that I believe that raised beds are a great way for gardeners of all backgrounds and skill levels to garden successfully. The best reason to like raised…
Common Raised Bed Garden Questions Answered
Raised beds are one of the absolute BEST ways to grow a garden but there can be challenges to growing in raised beds. Often gardeners have questions about the best methods to grow in a raised bed. In this post I’ve taken some common raised bed garden questions and put together some answers based on my experience. I’ve grown in…
Plant Propagation Information
Plant propagation is one of my favorite things to do in the garden! Below are some articles on how to propagate various plants. You can also check this page out with specific info on plant propagation: Plant Propagation for Home Gardens
Propagating Creeping Thyme
Creeping thyme or Thymus serpyllum makes a great ground cover that is very easy to grow. Once started it quickly grows and spread to fill out areas. Creeping thyme is an extremely easy plant to propagate. Why is propagating creeping thyme so easy? Let’s take…
How to Grow Oak Leaf Hydrangeas From Seed
I did a video a while back on Youtube about collecting oak leaf hydrangeas from seed. I thought since now is the ideal time to start collecting those seeds again I would go ahead and direct sow some oak leaf hydrangeas from seed. Below you…
How to Propagate Hardwood Cuttings of Russian Sage
The other day I had an idea. Instead of taking my pruned Russian sage branches and just dumping them in the compost, I thought what if I tried to make cuttings from them? I’ve propagated Russian sage cuttings very easily in the spring from softwood…
How to Propagate Stevia from Cuttings
There are some plants that are tricky to propagate but stevia isn’t one of them! In fact stevia is very easy to root from cuttings. Read on to learn more about propagating stevia from cuttings! Why Would You Want to Propagate Steve from Cuttings? Stevia…
Making Free Plants for the Garden from Cuttings
Free Plants! The best possible price you can find right? Last week I was struck by a post at everyone’s favorite garden ranting website. The post discussed the “lies” of gardening and one of those supposed lies was that you don’t have to spend money…
5 Easy Perennials to Propagate from Cuttings
Isn’t it great to have a few easy to propagate plants that you can grow to increase your garden? The plants in the video below are all easy to grow from cuttings. salvia catmint creeping phlox monarda lemon balm General Propagation Procedures for These Plants…
Growing Home Vegetable Gardens
Articles with tips and ideas on how to grow a great vegetable garden.
My Raised Bed Vegetable Garden Changes for 2010
Each year I try to expand the vegetable garden a little bit more. The first year in our home I didn’t have time to put together a garden before the growing season started and we missed out on any vegetable garden. The “L” Shaped Raised Beds: The second year I put together a set of raised beds that were arranged…
5 Things You Need to Know About Growing a Great Tomato!
Tomato planting season is almost here for Middle Tennessee so I thought now would be the perfect time to share some things you need to know about growing a great tomato! Tomatoes have always been my favorite crop from the garden. I like tomatoes fresh, cooked, preserved – it doesn’t matter how – I like a GREAT Tomato! There are…
5 Reasons Why Growing Organically in the Home Garden is Better
By now you’ve probably heard about the study that says organically grown vegetables are not any healthier than their “conventionally” grown counterparts. If you haven’t I’ll sum it up in a nutshell. The study examined the nutrients and vitamins present in organic produce and compared it to conventionally grown vegetables and didn’t find a significant difference between the two. This might…
Edible Landscaping for Beginners: Elements of a Sustainable Plan
In my last post I told you how to begin planning for an edible landscape and how to determine what to grow. Today let’s examine what elements you need to incorporate into the plan. With an edible landscape we need to focus on one thing: sustainability. Sustainability is a word used a lot these days and for our gardening goals…
Vegetable Garden Checklist for the End of March
Everyone is thinking about the garden right now, if not they should be! The vegetable garden is where you can really reap the rewards of your backyard. Sometimes though you don’t know what you should be doing and when or (if you’re like me) forget a few things every now and then! So here is a little garden checklist for…
