Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

On Saturday we went up to visit the in-laws for Easter. The day was cool but sunny with a little wind and with the right amount of layering was quite pleasant. It was one of those spring days that almost, just almost felt like spring. It still had the cool sentiments of our Tennessee winters. After visiting for a little…

The other use for my pile of rock was for garden borders. I’m gradually edging all my garden beds with natural limestone rock. Limestone is readily available all over Tennessee which makes it either cheap or free! I’m happy with the look o limestone but nearly any type of rock will work well for borders if it is large enough….

I was looking back at photographs of the past year in the garden and found these shots of the front sidewalk garden. When the weather is cold and rainy outside it’s nice to look back sometimes and see how things were where they were in bloom. The sidewalk skirts the garage portion of our house and takes you up to…

Sometimes there are seeds that are just too cool not to have their own post which is the case for butterfly weed seeds! Asclepias tuberosa is a beautiful orange plant in the garden and along roadsides but what is really neat is its method of seed dispersal. After pollination the seed pods begin to form. Inside those pods small seeds…

This spring I bought this pineapple sage at a garden show fully expecting it to thrive and burst into colorful red blooms. Well I can say one thing, it is thriving!  For some reason the blooms are just now beginning to form despite it growing to a size of about three and a half feet round.  It has nearly overtaken…

Sweet gum trees (Liquidambar styraciflua) are beautiful trees and are great to have around for wildlife. The seeds of the sweet gum tree are eaten by small mammals like squirrels and chipmunks as well as a number of birds including finches, ducks, quail, chickadees, sparrows, towhees, and Carolina wrens. With all that wildlife enjoying the sweetgum trees I can easily…

If you are like me and are always trying to find economical ways to improve your landscape and gardens then you should consider visiting a plant swap. Coming up next Saturday at Henry Horton State Park in Middle Tennessee is one such opportunity. The folks over at the GardenWeb: Tennessee community organized a plant swap that meets once a year…

Marigolds are beautiful annual flowers that are great to plant in the garden for a number of reasons. They attract pollinators and beneficial insects while at the same time providing benefits for companion planting. Marigolds are extremely easy to grow and you can save the seed from them each year to start again year after year. Here’s more about growing…

Along the posts of the arbor project we added a little decoration. Welcome to Japanese Maple Leaf Decor 101: How to Stain an Arbor! First we put the initial coat of stain on the 4″x4″s then placed a leaf of a Japanese maple on the still slightly damp wood. Then we removed the leaf after a second coat of stain…

This time of year can be very confusing.  Especially when the weather throws a few curve balls like extra warm temperatures!  It almost makes you think it will be fine to plant those tomatoes four weeks early.  I know why, everyone wants bragging rights about that first ripe tomato! I thought for today’s Friday Five post that I would mention…

The other day while my youngest daughter was taking her morning nap my other daughter and I went out to play in the garden. It was a nice August day, very atypical as it was comfortably in the 80’s. Our first stop was down to her garden. It was full of the zinnias and sunflowers that we planted several weeks…

It’s that time of year when the fall blooming plants begin to start their show including Sweet Autumn Clematis (Clematis terniflora). This non-native clematis grows prolifically through the summer and gladly will climb and overtake any structure it meets then will bloom in the fall. I picked up two of these on the discount racks and even though I know…

One of the most despised “weeds” in the lawn is the dandelion.  All sorts of chemical companies offer ways to get rid of them and get your “perfect” lawn.  It’s too bad that we seek to eliminate this little flower because they have so many healthy benefits!  What is a Dandelion good for?  I’m glad you asked! The Benefits of…

Some days the rain gets you!Here’s one very wet cardinal finishing off the seed from our bird feeder in the rain.

Did you ever realize that you could go to Florida and see Tennessee fall colors? Well you can today, since Meems brought fall colors from Tennessee to her blog Hoe and Shovel! She recently came here to TN to visit her sister and went to visit the beautiful gardens of Cheekwood Botanical Gardens. She put the pictures together in a…

In a couple days I hope to be picking some of our first squash from the garden. Squash is one of those prolific plants that will produce for long periods of time as long as you do the right thing to it help it along. It likes to be picked on repeatedly. In fact squash peters out when the fruits…

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…

Best Wishes for an Amazing 2018! May your life be happy and prosperous while your garden grows green and lush! Happy New Year! Happy New Year