Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Back in June was the last time I posted about my birdbath garden. I thought I’d take a moment to go way back to the beginning of the garden and show you where it came from and where it might be going.The picture on the left was taken just after I completed the birdbath and installed the first few plants….

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…

Propagating plants by cuttings is by far the most common way I propagate plants. When you take a cutting from a plant you are making an exact genetic duplicate of the original plant. Essentially it’s a clone. No you won’t see any George Lucas movies about plant propagation (I don’t even want to think about weeds using the Force. The…

What’s not to like about ‘Homestead Purple’ Verbena? The only answer I could come up with to my own question is that I don’t have enough of it! It is a fantastic flowering ground cover. ‘Purple Homestead’ grows very well with little care in full sun. For Tennessee gardens it’s a must have perennial. Who Discovered ‘Purple Homestead’ Verbena? Do…

In one of my last posts I mentioned receiving my free Arbor Day trees. Those trees have now been planted. While planting them I was pleasantly surprised by a couple things.1. The trees were marked very clearly with the color coding system. It was not just a thin little line above the roots indicating which tree they were, but rather…

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….

Today is the last day of 2008 but unless you’ve never seen a calander you probably knew that already.  As one year ends and new one begins.  It’s time for a short look back at 2008 and a glance into the future.2008 was the first full growing year that we really had in the garden.  Our first year in our…

Over at Ledge and Gardens in Rhode Island Layanee has put together a post about my favorite trees, maples! Layanee’s maples are mostly Japanese maples and their color is nothing short of awesome. From orange to red to gold-green these maples don’t disappoint for fall color. Included in her post are the Acer palmatum varieties ‘Omurayama’ and ‘Osakasuki’, as well…

OK so you’ve gotten your big seed order in the mail, now what?  What do you use to actually start the seeds in?  What kind of pots?  What kind of soil?  After deciding what seeds to order you need to know what medium to plant your future garden in.  There are a lot of variables out there to choose from,…

Every now and then I take a look around the Gardening Blogosphere to see if there are any new Tennessee Bloggers. And every now and then I find a few! Of course I have to thank Gail of Clay and Limestone for finding DP at Squarefoot Gardening. One of the great things about garden blogging is that each gardener has…

Over the weekend our family visited Bountiful Blessings Farm here in Middle TN.  Bountiful Blessings is in the Williamsport area about 30-40 minutes away from where we live here in Spring Hill. The big draw for us was the strawberries.  My mom gave us a couple pints of strawberries from their farm about 2 weeks ago and they were so…

One of the first things to greet anyone at our house is the mailbox garden. It’s the first thing that people see as they drive by or visit. It’s also about the only thing you can see of our gardens from a distance since our house sits down below the street level in a cul-de-sac that most people probably don’t…

It’s raining. Again. No one can control the weather and even though sometimes it can’t be predicted accurately, today they got it right. The rain is good, don’t get me wrong but I really want to plant some vegetable plants and seeds in the raised bed garden.  I’m not late in planting at all, just not as early as I…

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…

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 soaking the seeds. The second process is called stratification and mimics the natural cycle seeds…

I thought I would put together a catch up post for anyone who might have missed the past Garden Blogger Assignments. You are welcome to write about any of the past assignments over the last several weeks. I won’t be putting together a new assignment until next Sunday so please enjoy taking a look back at what some of the…

Is it cold enough for you yet? Too cold if you ask me! Temperatures are not destined to be above freezing in the foreseeable future here in TN. I’m intentionally laying low indoors due to those low temperatures but others are not so lucky. The birds are fluffing their feathers out as much as they possibly can in an effort…