About three weeks ago two 80 plus feet high cottonwoods began shedding their leaves cluttering up many of my garden paths and favorite plants. There is no apparent need for this shedding because these water hoggers have grown up over the past 50 years immediately beside an acre sized pond including a large part for which I pay property taxes. Too, I have noticed the shedding of white pine needles which started about two weeks...
Read More >>We learn these days from university that certain plants are evil. Their school room instructors demand the public help the sainted to rid our pristine world of certain things foul. Many of us humans are not quite yet actually on their lists, but a lot of plants are. We learn which ones both from people in politics and from neighbors with public enthusiasm who seek purpose in life. For twenty years now university disciples, people...
Read More >>Mine is a landscape garden grounds. Most rooms differ one from another. Most of the structure is managed by conifers.....after all, the winter landscape in Minnesota is as long as Spring, Summer, and Autum put together.......six months if you really want to know.; Color is very important and is highly valued in my grounds. But it is only equal to texture and secondary to form, both shape and size. I control color in a number of...
Read More >>SUNKIST ARBORVITAE: Probably the most stunning plant on my grounds is the 20 foot Sunkist Arborvitae in my front grounds. Its form, bright gold color, and size dominate the scene as I or anyone drives to my house located at the end of a cul-de-sac. Although its size impresses the viewer in winter, from late February to December it is brilliant yellow of the new foliage which makes this huge form so noticed and so beautiful. Its size...
Read More >>I began my drive to create a landscape garden 38 years ago this past Spring. I had just been appointed to become Executive Secretary of the Minnesota State Horticultural Society and was winding up my graduate "studies" program and the University of Minnesota Horticultural Department. But the useable part of my education never came from those post graduate studies. The two year effort was like being in the military service paying duty as a part...
Read More >>A people's culture is imprisoned by the habits of the day. It is designed by religion, politics, and education or the lack of it whereever people collect and settle. We live in an America that has been reduced to the indoors. Perhaps the majority of its population now believe that the tomato is manufactured at the local super market or factory. We live in an America whose indoor college graduates in the social sciences believe that...
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...
Read More >>NEW! GARDEN TOUR AND PERENNIAL SALE Garden tour and perennials for sale from two classic landscape gardens featured in the St Paul Pioneer Press, Mpls Star/Trib and Upper Midwest Garden magazines. You will see the plants available for sale in their idealized settings. Perennials include: SUN & SHADE GROUND COVERS (Canadian and European ginger, Iris cristata, Lysimachia'aurea', Sedum 'communis', sweet woodruff, Sedum Kamchaticum. Lamium, Vinca Minor (periwinkle), violets, assorted hen & chicks) WOODLAND PLANTS (Brunnera,...
Read More >>The following observations are made for the general not the specific regarding pruning conifers. It is far better for the growth and health of conebearing plants if pruning is accomplished in our Northland community before the first of June of each year. Some conifers are fussier than others about pruning. GENERALLY, then, you might find it easier to remember the pruning requirements of both groups by calling the candle producers the 'fussy' and those which do not produce candles, the not fussy....
Read More >>During the evenings of the early part of this week, our Twin Citiy, Minnesota area was hit with night frost lows of 27F, 26F, and 32F, although at my place Wednesday evening's frost of 32F didn't arrive. Instead my landscape garden escaped the third day of damage with a low of 35F. The damage had already been done. The blooms of my 40 year old PJM Rhododendron were on the ground by Tuesday morning. Those...
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