The Watermelon Propane Tank in Tiger Way Gardens

Good morning and hello new and regular readers of this blog. It has been quite a while since either Skeeter or I have posted but I can assure you, we have not forgotten about you all! I still love this blog and all of its memories and readers and the Internet, I just am not on the computer as much as I used to be. Smartphones and Facebook seem to be about the only blogging I do lately. So, if you like this blog and would like to hear more from your Coach in the Garden be sure to like my Facebook Page found here. 

I have been traveling in Europe, puttering in the garden, and generally keeping myself busy. Sometimes I am so busy I forget where all the time has gone. I know that can happen to a lot of us often. The project I am sharing today is such a fun and easy project that I wonder why I had not yet completed it-like last year when I had the vision to dress up my big 250 gallon propane tank. I guess, aside from being busy, I was a bit afraid to tackle this watermelon. I really had no idea where to begin to paint this monster and make it look great for me. Well, once I got started it was really SO easy I should've finished this long ago.

I think it turned out exactly the way I wanted it to and it fits into my garden and home setting so perfectly it could've been custom made-and it was!

This whole project took perhaps an hour or two. Mainly, the time spent was letting the paint dry. The active part of the design came from squeezing the trigger on the paint cans. And that's it! I did not draw anything nor did I worry about preciseness on my watermelon. I added the seeds to the watermelon by hand using a black patio paint and paint brush.

The tank has been in place for three years (that's how old my house is and how long I've lived here). The tank is actually in an out of the way area but still within thirty feet of my house and I wanted it to blend in. In the above state, it did not much fit into the garden even though I tried to disguise it with planting 'Shenandoah' grass clumps around the tank. 

I first cleaned the tank really well and sanded it a bit with steel wool and a fine sandpaper. I then began spraying an Self Etching OD Green Primer all over the tank. It took two cans of the primer to cover the tank. You can just make out the OD Green primer on the far left end of the tank in the above picture.

I then covered most of the tank with a lime green Anti Rust Paint. I left the far end OD Green because it would be the cut part of the watermelon and would be painted red.

I next took a can of OD Green and spray painted lines similar to what you might have on a real watermelon rind. At this point it was beginning to look like a watermelon and I was encouraged. The colors I picked were perfect (they are pictured below). The lines needed to be blurred a bit so I scribbled around them to fatten them up and make them appear to be more natural.

The above colors and paints are what I used for my watermelon. All are easily found in any big box store. I also applied a coat of polyurethane over the top of the completed tank.

One more look at my "Watermelon" propane tank!



Loving it in the garden.....

Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden

Irene's Garden Part III

We start with whimsy the first thing in this post and I know a lot of you all love whimsy! This bowling ball 'caterpillar' is a lot of fun. The bowling balls for this garden caterpillar actually came from my garden. Irene posted on Freecycle.org that she desired some bowling balls and since I am cleaning my garden up I told her she could have mine. Have you ever participated in a Yahoo email group? That is what Freecycle does. Freecyle is actually a email group of local people who are interested in keeping things out of the dump while sharing with others. So, for instance you happen to have a lot of extra bowling balls or irises and someone needs some you can send an email to the group and offer your extras and the person who may need them will respond. It is then up to you to set a place and time to transfer the items. This needs to be done with common sense as meeting strangers can be a not so good experience. Fortunately, I've been very lucky in many of my dealings with Freecycle members. This is actually how I initially met Irene and her husband. They responded to an email I sent giving away irises. I am betting those irises are still growing well in Irene's garden. You just never know who you might meet on Freecycle as I've met a lot of people who have the same interests as me. Oftentimes we become good friends as in the case of Irene and I.

Here is the other side of Irene's foundation garden. Don't you love the curved sidewalk? We had curved sidewalks poured at our new house too. I don't know why more people don't do the curved sidewalks as they make getting to the front door easier than walking along all those right angles. As a bonus, your garden will be less formal with curves versus straight angles.

More of the foundation beds.

Here we have evergreens mixed with deciduous plants. Even when the 'Red Rooster' is bare of leaves the spent seedpods provide winter interest. I love the variety here and am a stern believer that foundation gardens need not be all evergreen boxwoods. I will soon be posting some pictures of my new foundation beds at Tiger Way Gardens. 

This butterfly garden out in the field was really lovely. Irene had taken old tires and painted them bright colors with her grandson, and then filled the tires with soil and planted plants. Mainly drought tolerant plants and plants that need good drainage or need to be contained. This garden was a hot, hot garden; which is good for butterflies.

Now here is the big greenhouses a thing of beauty and what most of us would love to have in our gardens-me included!

An ornamental garden looking toward the raised vegetable beds.

'Henry Eiler' coneflowers were stunning on this hot August day.

Lastly, I leave you with a long shot from the driveway. This is indeed a country garden with lots of great vistas and nice diverse plant material....

in the garden....

Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden

Irene's Garden Part II

Continuing our garden tour of Irene's garden we find another border garden filled with attractive shrubs and a Japanese style concrete lantern. I really like Irene's ability to combine different styles of gardening successfully. Irene is an expert at combining formal and informal areas, as well as cottagey type gardening and English style gardening. Each plant has its space and plays well with its neighbors. This is also a lesson I need to learn-leave enough space!

More textures and a combination of evergreen and deciduous shrubs and grasses.

A rock garden where some more drought tolerant plants grow. Most all of the paths through Irene's large garden are grass.

A long view.

Another sign paying homage to Puerto Rico. Irene's husband does help her out in the garden to a certain extent so she makes sure he has some areas of his own.

Irene's property is very large and as such she has filled it up with gardens but has also managed to keep views of the surrounding country. Right behind this garden is a small driveway and on the other side of that is a large fenced in pond that contains a bunch of ducks and waterfowl that belong to her neighbor. Irene enjoys the view from the upper story of her home. Here, I took the picture from ground level.

Obedient plant was blooming its heart out. It was quite a sight on a hot and dry August day.

A vintage patio set is placed conveniently in the garden.

Vegetable gardening is important to Irene. Most of her beds are raised up by concrete blocks mortared together. In Tennessee, raised beds are really the only way to go. Note the PVC framework for some heavy plastic in order to extend the growing season. The PVC frame makes it a cinch to drape heavy plastic over the bed in order to grow cool weather vegetables during the winter months.

I leave you with one last picture of the front foundation garden of Irene's home. Again, textures combine with color and the area is quite interesting to look at. I think the red is perfect against the stone on the house. With my new house where the house is all brick, I am having difficulty getting good plants to show up well without clashing with the dark brick. I have pretty much figured out white blooming plants or lighter blooming plants such as pinks, will be my go to colors for my house foundation gardens. 

When we come back on Friday I'll showcase some more of Irene's foundation beds and a few more garden tour pictures....

in the garden....

Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden

My Friend Irene's Large and Whimsical Garden in the Country Part I

Good morning all! I hope it is a wonderful one and that you all take a moment to remember the sacrifices all veterans make each day so that our country can be free as tomorrow is officially Veteran's Day.

I am trying to still blog and take pictures of what is going on in my new gardens but it is hard. Oftentimes I only have my mobile handy so that is where most of the pictures go. I don't normally upload pictures to the blog from my mobile so then I am without pictures. I really need to do better as there are exciting things happening in Tiger Way Gardens. The main one is that the house is nearly finished and that I have been able to landscape--finally! Tearing up all of the land in front of the house for the geothermal heat, and tearing up all of the land in behind the house for the septic system, and not having any soil around the house has made it extremely difficult for me to landscape. I'm happy to report those issues are over with now. I have graded the yard and backfilled (with some help from my backhoe guy), and am busy making a new vegetable garden and foundation gardens along with setting up lighting and so on. At any rate, I'll try to get some pictures soon so you guys can come along for the ride and follow some of my thought processes. Today's posts (and Wednesdays and Fridays--hopefully) will be about my friend Irene's beautiful and large country garden. I visited her home back in August and had a delightful time spending time out with my friend. She, unfortunately, lives on the other side of town from me so we don't get a chance to hang out often. I took a ton of pictures of her garden as I knew you all would love it! While looking at the pictures take note of the textures you can find in Irene's garden. I am a big texture person over color or anything else you may find in a garden. Irene is an expert at weaving textures along with garden art into her landscape. 

Let's start with a wonderful purple martin house right next to a pergola in behind Irene's house. You can just see the start of a vine climbing the pergola; which actually covers a short staircase down into the back garden. The weeping Japanese maple and shrub behind it add some nice texture.



Here we are under the deck where there are a multitude of tropical and house plants. I could not help but love this vine growing in this beautiful designed pot. Irene has a very large collection of tropicals that she takes into the house each winter into her sunroom. Well, this year she was gifted with a greenhouse (as you shall see) and I bet she is going to have an easier time taking in all of these plants and will really enjoy her greenhouse.

This is looking east in her back garden. The PeeGee hydrangeas is trained to a tree form. This kind of pruning takes a lot of work and time. It is a really neat way to grow these hydrangeas if you can train one like this. For me, I've had no luck creating tree form plants.

More shrubs along the back of the garden. Here a golden mophead shares space with 'Bonfire' patio peach and a hydrangea. The bed is lined with brick. I am not sure if they were brick left over from the house build or not. Irene and her husband custom built their house about five years ago-so this garden is only five years old.

Irene loves whimsy! I know whimsy is not for everyone but you have to remember that each garden has to please the gardener. That is paramount to loving your garden and maintaining it. This bird feeding station most likely pleases our feathered friends a lot! Especially if they read the sign and see that they are welcomed.

A small bottle tree in the form of a peacock brightens a shady area. See how the pulmonaria (gray foliaged plant) plays off from the sedge's spiky foliage (lime green grasslike plant)? Then there are some rounded leaved plants as well. If you are designing a garden and can successfully combine textures, ie; bold with subtle, fine with coarse, and vary plant forms you will be have a very interesting and attractive garden. Color and bloom times and repetition are easy compared to textures.

Irene's husband is from Puerto Rico so here is her homage to her husband's homeland-the beach!

A berm with several types of massed shrubs bordered by a privet hedge adds interest and gives the garden a sense of formality. The grasses really set it all off too.

I leave you with a long shot of the west side of the garden looking up to the pergola you saw in the opening picture. Do come back later this week and see the rest of Irene's large garden....

in the garden....

Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden

The Year of the Bottles at Summer Celebration-UT Jackson Part II

Part II of our trip to the University of Tennessee's Annual Summer Celebration sees a LOT more bottles and garden art. Let's start with these strings of wine bottles hanging from a tree limb.

How about a huge bottle tree? I think this bottle tree was made from an old cedar tree. I too have a cedar bottle tree in my garden and I love it. I can honestly say the cedar holds up pretty well to the weight of the bottles but with time, the branches will slowly become flexible and will tilt down to the ground following the pull of gravity. This can make a problem for moisture getting into the bottles and the bottles falling off from the tree. You should plan for this happen and help to prevent it by choosing thick sturdy branches to place your bottles on. These branches should be distinctly upright in their habit. If you need more places to hang bottles then I have found long lag bolts drilled into the tree work well and don't sag.

Rolls of barbed wire can be beautiful when displayed in a garden. It is that timeless theme of circles with the added benefit of the new 'in' theme called 'rust in a garden'.

How about this mailbox fitted into a cedar tree? Mr. Fix-it and I are trying to decide what kind of mailbox we can put on our rather isolated country road in order to protect it from hooliganism. This idea might work! I believe this mailbox was left over from a previous Summer Celebration where the theme involved mailboxes. Mailboxes in a garden are a great idea!

Now we are coming to some specifics. Anyone who lives or visits Tennessee during this time of the year will be introduced to fireflies. It is a major but simple pleasure of Tennessee summers and I made sure to introduce my sister and her family to Tennessee's fireflies on her recent visit here to Tiger Gardens. I was super excited to see not only fireflies but dragonflies highlighted at Summer Celebration and to show my sister's two young granddaughters the sparkly Tennessee evening thanks to fireflies.

These fireflies were made by taking small bottles and filling the bottles with shiny ribbon (from the gift wrap section of your local department store) and adding some wings made of wire wrapped around another wire frame. The effect when these small bottles are hung in a tree is that the bottles appear to glow and cannot be mistaken for anything but fireflies. These were splendid! If you make some make lots because they look best en masse.

In the same bed and display area as the fireflies were these dragonflies made from a spherical piece of metal with four wine bottles attached. The whole thing was then mounted to a pole and placed in the garden. What a creative way to display wine bottles! Dragonflies are also a mainstay of Tennessee and most appropriate to this year's Summer Celebration....

in the garden....

Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden

The Year of the Bottles at Summer Celebration UT Jackson-Part I

How about a little fun with bottles today? No! I am not talking bottles full of spirits so please give up that thought! The bottles I will share and have fun with are empty bottles poised in a garden so as to bring lots of delight to all who see-no artificial 'celebratory' spirits required to have fun!

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of traveling all the way to Jackson Tennessee to participate in the University of Tennessee's Summer Celebration in honor of gardening. UT Jackson is a research facility that trials many plants. Some of the plants are displayed in lovely gardens such as the one above. All plants are labeled and displayed in a beautiful way so as to delight onlookers and make us all go running for our cameras, pens, and paper so as to take notes.

What distinguishes UT Jackson gardens from perhaps some other gardens are all of the lovely adornments. Can you say junk? Junk is right up my alley and I happen to think junk in the right situation is a win-win scenario for all. I mean think about it. This old boxspring (I have several on my property thanks to thoughtless people who prefer to dump on others' property) was saved from the landfill and is now used to bring a smile to onlookers faces. Not to mention it is a great trellis for vines to grow upon. Now if I could only secure those boxsprings on my land from the years of weeds growing up through them-but that is another story. Don't you love the bottles attached to the posts holding up this boxspring? I have also seen boxsprings like this displayed horizontally hanging from say a gazebo. Woven into the springs will be miniature lights so as to give a starry effect to wherever the boxspring is hung. It is a delightful sight!

Now these gears are too much fun in the garden. For some reason almost everyone is drawn to circles in life and in nature. The endlessness of them is tempered by the pointed triangle they are displayed upon. What a nice focal point!

This has to be one of my favorite displays. It was quite different than the usual bottle tree. Here we have wine bottles strung upon cables which are then hung between saw blades that were secured to a cental 4"x4". Sweet!

As my dear friend (Irene) and I walked around we kept finding really neat displays. This garden area near the buildings was one you really had to look at in order to see all of the neat bottle art in it. I will show close ups of the 'fireflies' hanging in the tree and dragonflies taking flight on a later post. You will be amazed at them. I know I was and plan to make some very own fireflies and dragonflies of my own.

I'll finish this post with a picture of my friend Irene and I. (I am the white haired lady on the left). This is the second year for Irene and I traveling to Summer Celebration together and we had a great time and bought lots of super good cultivars and hard to find plants. We swap years for driving and I tell you the drive with a friend makes the time pass by so much more quickly. We are standing in front of the grand 'bottle wall' at the gardens. There is a close up of the bottles in the first picture of this post. This display was probably one of the largest in the gardens and certainly the most grand during this 'Year of the Bottles'.....

in the garden....

Look for a part II to this trip later this week.

Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden