Smokey Mountain Photos

Chris over at Outside Clyde posted a great picture of the Smokey Mountains that reminded me of when we lived out that way. We really miss living in east Tennessee because of the proximity to those mountains. There are all sorts of beautiful nooks and crannies to explore, breathtaking views, and animals to see. If you're lucky you may even catch a glimpse of a black bear or the elusive river otters. It took us nearly four years of trips to Cades Cove to finally see a bear but on the day we did we saw at least five. One was a mother bear with her three cubs. Needless to say we kept our distance!

We have too many pictures to post at one time so here is a small sampling of spring and summer pictures that we took while exploring one of our greatest National Parks!

A view from Cades Cove

Ben Franklin sure liked this bird!

Trees along the trail

Deer are a common sight in the parks!

Abram's Falls - a very popular trail off of Cades Cove


The road goes ever onward...

Fall Colors

Fall in Tennessee is known for its wonderful color displays. We have a variety of trees both of deciduous and evergreen trees that usually make spectacular displays of colors. Unfortunately these trees have suffered with the drought this past year and have not fully shown their colors. Here are some pictures of past autumn colors in the Smokey Mountains. We used to make fall pilgrimages to a place called Cades Cove. It's a great place for a hike or a picnic and is nestled in the Tennessee side of the mountains. Some of the pictures are taken from the top of Clingman's Dome, another great stop in the Smokies.

Spider Web

One morning back in September there was a heavy dew that illuminated this web on one of our potted lemon trees. We thought it was pretty cool so we took a picture of it!

Our House in Spring 2007

Here is our house in early spring. We took this picture soon after we bought it. There isn't much that can be said of the landscaping at this point. It was basically a blank slate to work with. There were two Japanese hollies in front of the garage that died due to the frost and one large Nandina that is thriving now. It's the plant in between the two windows on the right. In front of the porch are some other hollies that are recovering but haven't made it to 100% yet. As for other plantings the house only had two Bradford Pears planted in the front like almost every other house in the subdivision.

Bradford pears are pretty to look at in the spring with the flowers but are very odoriferous. Not to mention they have very weak wood and will easily split in strong winds. I don't recommend planting them. I would put in Yoshino Cherries instead. They flower at similar times and have white flowers, but are much better trees. But since the Bradfords are already there I'll leave them until they get damaged then replace them with something better.

The turf in the yard was awful, ragweed sprouts were everywhere and crowded out any good grass that might have grown. I went through tis summer and pulled as much of the ragweed up by the roots as I could. Needless to say the yard has plenty of bare patches to fill. I put in some Kentucky 31 grass in the patches and overseeded. Some of it is coming up great so I'm looking forward to a better yard in the spring!

Through the Trees

I took this picture over the weekend while the afternoon sun was beginning to descend. It was taken from the very back of our yard looking up toward the treetops of sassafras, dogwood, tulip poplar, and walnut. The fall colors are beginning their peak time and I know I'll be loading my camera card with many more pictures than I could possibly share with you. Of course maybe that's a good thing because you will see only the best!

Randomness Around the Garden

This was one of those weekends where my garden time was fairly limited. I still managed to get outdoors some and accomplish a few little things. The biggest task was putting together the garden cart for my mower. It took almost two hours. That's probably where most of my outdoor time went but when it comes to paying the store $20 or doing the job myself I'd rather keep the money in my pocket! I did take a few minutes to photograph some of what's going on in the garden.

The self-sowing celosia is looking great! This particular flower is almost in the shape of a crown. I planted celosia two years ago here and it has taken off.  Be warned because it could become invasive if you allowed it to run amok. Of course it's easy enough to control with just a little bit of manual labor.

The crape myrtles are well into their blooming period. They really like it hot! This one is planted next to our arbor which frames the entry into the side garden.

My miniature sea of liriope! Liriope is used very often as a ground cover and for good reason. It's drought tolerant, almost no care is needed, and it looks pretty good when planted enmass.

This gaillardia was a self-sown offspring of an 'Oranges and Lemons' gaillardia. I've mentioned this particular gaillardia before but its fantastic red and yellow colors always make it worthy of revisiting.

I didn't plant this artemisia here but it doesn't look too bad. I believe it's 'Silver King'.  I may not know 100% which variety it is but I can tell you it is extremely invasive. I really prefer 'Silver Mound' or 'Powis Castle' artemsias which are much more self contained. Unless you have a ton of area to cover I wouldn't recommend 'Silver King'. This patch of artemsia tagged along as a small root with a daylily I moved last year. It does look good though with my rudbeckia.

Do you remember my 'Trombetta' squash from the other day? Here it is with some of the other harvest from the vegetable garden over the weekend. I'm planning on frying up some squash medallions with this extra long squash.  It's about a half-dollar size in diameter and about two feet long. I think I let it grow two to three days longer than I should have. We'll just have to see how it tastes to know for sure!

How was your weekend?

In the Clouds

The other evening some clouds were blowing. Here's a look at what we saw. A small storm was on its way through our area which is usually when you get most interesting clouds!


Please excuse the power lines. Half the neighborhood has them below ground, our half doesn't.

Isn't that Just Dandy? (A Photo post)

I posted this picture the other day on The Home Garden Facebook page but thought I'd share it here too. Dandelions may be the bane of the lawn care perfectionist but if you look close I think you can appreciate the beauty in even the weeds.

Great Home Gardens: An Italian Garden

A few weeks ago an email came in my box asking me a question about propagating irises. I answered the question then received a picture of the questioning gardener’s garden. To say that I was impressed would be an understatement. Climbing roses mixed with many varieties of perennials create a living painting in Ennio’s backyard. And did I mention that it’s in Venice, Italy? Isn’t that the amazing thing about the world we live in today – we can visit any garden anywhere a camera has been without even leaving the room! But I have to say that being in the garden would be much better than just gawking at the pictures but today I’ll do the next best thing to being there, I’ll show you Ennio’s photos of his Italian garden and we can gawk together. He’s been gardening for 13 years and the photos you are about to see are of his 2 year old garden that was developed through transplants from his previous gardens.

Great Home Gardens from The Home Garden

Thank you Ennio for sharing your garden!

I hope to make virtual garden tours a regular part of The Home Garden.  When I have submissions I’ll post them on the weekends. If you have garden photos that you would like me to show in a similar format here at The Home Garden just email me the photos at thehomegarden@gmail.com along with some cool, interesting, or just plain nifty information about your garden! Keep in mind that by sending me the pictures you are giving me permission to host them here and say whatever I want about them – don’t worry, I’ll be nice!

Thinking of Snow

Since it doesn't appear likely that we'll experience much snow this year in Tennessee I'm importing some pictures of snow to look at. My brother in Flagstaff, Arizona took these pictures of their recent snowfall. They've had several significant snowfalls this year. It would be nice to have just one of them here!

They had 6 inches of snow among the pines.

Weather Report: Cold with a Chance of Snow

A chance of freezing precipitation was in the forecast for today, but knowing how Tennessee forecasts work I did not put much faith in it. The forecasters begin talking about frosty weather several days in advance and there it remains, several days in advance. It just never seems to arrive. Tonight it did! Above you can see the wet snow laying on top of a Bird's Nest Spruce.



Here is a shot of the front porch garden bed. It's in a sad state right now but the snow adds some elegance.


Here is a view from the front porch into our neighbor's yard. It's accumulating but we won't end up with much, we rarely do. I'm just hoping for some daylight snow shots and enough snow tomorrow so that a certain 2 year old can make a little snowman!

Signs of Spring

Yesterday in a walk around the yard we discovered some signs of the spring to come. Daffodils are sprouting up all over, the verbena is greening up and some sedum sprouts are peaking from their winter slumber. Maybe it's early, but the temperatures have felt like spring. Historically our worst winter weather tends to happen in February and March but maybe we'll get through uneventfully. I just hope that the early warm weather doesn't cause a false spring then a late freeze like last year. I don't know if the plants that are recovering from that event will survive a second round.

To the left you can see one of our daffodil's saying "Is it Spring yet?"

Below is one of our 'Homestead Purple' verbenas starting to green-up.


















See them sedums sproutin'!













More daffodils!

Some Pictures of Early January in Tennessee

Here are some pictures that we have taken of 2008!

Here is a snowfall on a very cold evening. I like how the white snowflakes are captured, frozen in time, by the reflected light of the flash.


A visitor to our new bird feeder! This white-breasted nuthatch (Sitta carolinesis) is cracking open the shell of a sunflower seed for his feast. He is one among many visitors we have had lately including chickadees, tufted titmice, cardinals, red-bellied woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers, and the occasional finch.


All puffed up against the cold, this female woodpecker watches everything from its Bradford pear perch.


For more cardinal action check out Tina's blog at In the Garden. Look for the January 5th post!

Window in the Sky

During a break in the rain on Monday I was able to take these shots. The blue of the sky is just starting to peak through the dark rain clouds. It reminded me of one of my favorite newer U2 songs, Window in the Skies (from U218 The Singles). My oldest daughter's favorite part is when they sing "Oh, Oh, Oh , Oooooh oooooh." It's because of that she calls it the Oh, Oh, Oh Song.