Welcome Back!

After a two year absence, I am once again living in Nashville and working at the Demonstration Garden!  While many things have changed here, one thing is still the same; this is an amazing garden to visit!  These are some photos from a recent work day and I encourage you to visit this page often to see what is happening in the garden!

Chives, the seeds are so fertile that they pop up everywhere and so do the weeds!  This is some speedwell in the herb garden and of course, some chive seedlings.

Daffodils are a sure sign of spring, let's hope it comes quickly.

Hyacinths are so fragrant that you can almost smell them before you spot the blooms!

Over in the shade beds, the Solomon's Seal is thinking it is spring as well.

The Hellebores are in full bloom.

Things are starting to wake up and follow the Daffodil's lead down in the perennial garden.

How can you not love a plant that seems to glow?  Bloody Dock is one of my favorite foliage plants.  When the light shines through it, it glows.  This is proof that you do not need just flowers to add a pop of color to your garden!

The cabbages in the vegetable garden are heading now and before we know it, we will be picking them!  

In the vegetable garden, we also have asparagus.  Ever wonder how they grow white asparagus?  The stalks are blanched by keeping them covered and if you look closely at the tip of this one, you can see it is white.  It grew up with a cluster of leaves and debris on the tip like an umbrella and blanched itself white.  However, as soon as I uncovered it, the plant began the process of greening itself.

And just for fun, some ornamental kale, because everyone needs a hint of color...

april in the garden

 hard to believe but spring is here!  the herb garden was given a new fence this spring thanks to kent.  the split rail fence comes to us from the hermitage property and we couldn't be happier with it!  a big round of applause to kent for coming out and installing it for us!!!

 and boy has kent been busy-he even replaced all of the rotted wood on our work table, we are so lucky to have him out in the garden!

 one of my favorite flowers of spring, epimidium, also called bishop's hat.

 another lovely shade plant, lamium in bloom

 the cold winter was good for something-daffodils!  they were spectacular this season.

 love these tiny blooms around the gazebo

 and of course, spring means new plants sprouting.  we have seeded the keyhole garden with all of the appropriate leaves and roots.  looking forward to munching on this arugula!

 yarrow setting blooms

 isn't the bloody dock beautiful when the sun shines through the leaves?

and of course, spring means columbines

come on out and join us in the garden as we get ready for the big urban gardening festival on may 17th.

Sunday in the garden, 3/30/14

It was a lovely morning in the garden today and for a change, it was warm and sunny.  Although we had more than an inch of rain on Saturday, we were able to work in the beds.  

The rain caused a little compaction in the keyhole garden but we can easily add more to top it off again before planting.

 During last weekends Earn as You Learn work session, we constructed a new bed in the herb garden using a permaculture technique called hugelkulur.

 Over in the gazebo, the daffodils are in full bloom.

 The perennial garden, spring has definitely sprung!  However, I am not sure when that yucca was planted in the bed.

 The dead nettle is in full bloom too.  We obviously will need to do a bit of weeding.

 Things got a little out of control in the rain garden too.  We were battling violets all last year and today was the day to get in there and dig them out.

After about two hours on hands and knees digging away, we claimed victory.  We will have to stay on them to prevent them from colonizing again.  But you have to admit, the rain garden looks amazing!  

update, 3/18

what a beautiful morning to spend working in the garden.  we were supposed to go on a morel hunt but our plans changed at the last minute.  since we had a little time to spare, we headed over to the demo garden to check on things and we ran into shirley as she was headed in to work.  together, we took a tour of the shade garden and a quick inventory of the plants.  it looks like a lot is getting ready to happen in the shade garden!  here is a quick look of some of the plants:

epimedium, bishop's hat.  aren't they gorgeous?  the flowers really do look like a bishop's hat.

 brunnera macrophylla, siberian bugloss.  this plant has the daintiest blue blossoms and it is putting on quite a show!

 this little lovely is a volunteer and it is putting out quite the effort-it has popped up all over the shade garden.  fumeria officinalis, fumatory, is a medicinal herb that the usda currently lists as absent from tennessee-they might want to check on that.  we will remove almost all of it since it is spreading so quickly.  some may end up in the herb garden if it can stand the sun.

 fiddleheads-the autumn fern is sending out new fronds

 the columbines have spread all around the center bed and that is fine with us-they are so pretty when they bloom.

memorial garden

 these tiny dwarf irises are blooming very early

the gazebo

 two years ago, shirley and i planted a bunch of daffodils around the gazebo.  it is always a pleasure to see them in bloom!

the blooms are putting on quite a show and they have multiplied nicely to make a solid border around the base of the gazebo.