Whether one lives in the woods, in suburbia, the city with "a yard" or on the 24th floor of some structure, most of us have two eyes which help lead us on our path from birth "to dusty death" as Shakespeare described the end for some. Our eyes absorb things ugly and things of beauty. What the eye absorbs usually becomes habit forming. Our todays are not carbon copies of yesterdays personally, collectively,...
Read More >>Spring is not, by calendar, that far away from today's February if you are a devoted landscape gardener.....in particular one who is devoted to express this love as it classically is supposed to be......from one's soul. Throughout the history of mankind, there are two 'far superior' spiritually-driven artistic forms of human expression above all others....."Paradise from beautiful music....and paradise from beautiful Earth. Religiously....."One is closest to God..in the Garden," so truthfully discovered by and...
Read More >>When, at what season, does, should, your landscape garden radiate its most inspiring beauty? The answer is simple......Whenever you enter your Garden of Eden. I have lived at my grounds for over 40 years, long enough to be able to do, genetically, mentally, physically, and culturally, what I was driven to do, planting and maintaining a beautiful landscape garden in some form or another. I have been very, very fortunate in life, and have many...
Read More >>The Landscape Garden of classic western and oriental culture is supposed to be an art form. "One is closest to God in the Garden"......Paradise of nearly all known human cultures has been described, imagined as a "Garden". Yet, at today's universities, in those which bother to include something oriented to landscaping of any kind, preach and enforce politics. Botany has become an unknown science to university undergraduate and graduate students except for perhaps at institutions...
Read More >>It snowed here last Thursday evening. We had only 8" here in my territory, two-thirds of an acre just west of Hopkins, Minnesota. By sunset yesterday, if the sun had been seen while setting in the rain, there was still some unmelted snow in the woodsier part of my grounds. Looking down from my office window as I write this note, I still see a portion of last December's snowdfall on the north side of...
Read More >>ANSWER: When a large enough tree is trimmed to be or by nature is programmed to be pyramidal.....that is more telephone pole than umbrella in shape. Unfortunately if there are 200 words, not including the names of plants, associated with performing landscape garden art, the typical homeowner knows about six. The worker at the local plant store knows ten. The modern American has become too divorced from the woody plant world around them. Most homeowners...
Read More >>We have had late, late Spring 'winter' storms in the past. One, one of the worst, occured as late as early May with a dumping here of 13 inches. My conifers weren't into teenagers or adults yet. They were still so cuddly and easily managed. Not all conifers are equal in their abilities to stay in one piece during excessively heavy snowfalls. Let me start with the toughest....or better yet, those which easily handle heavy...
Read More >>Two years ago November 13, a Saturday, my landscape grounds was buried under 32 inches of heavy, icy snow. Damage to white pines and arborvitaes accompanied the event.. I cannot remember last year's advent of winter. It was uneventful. Usually, the first snowfall is among the most beautiful, here in Vikingland. Especially if it is a dry one of about five inches of snow for a good white topping causing no tipping of pyramidal conifers....
Read More >>I remember well the summer of 1988. I was working for a grounds maintenance company, some place out of Bloomington. Clients were a number of big corporations which occupied large pieces of property. I got $8 an hour, but was called 'the Professor', because I knew something about plants. The hired, including me, were hired to be laborers, were expected to be laborers, and confined to be laborers. Few holes were dug.....nearly nothing was planted....
Read More >>That age old saying, "One is closest to God in the garden" does not refer to a vegetable garden or flower bed.....or a home orchard. It refers to a landscape garden. What is a landscape garden, then?.......to be basic, it is a piece of land that is landscaped. It is a piece of land to be entered as one enters a cathedral or a cemetery park, classically to inspire the visitor by the most revered...
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