What is the pH of your soil? "What a question. How would I know?" might be your immediate response. Without getting into the details, most of which I no longer remember, a pH "count" refers to the degree of acidity versus alkalinity of what is being tested, in this case, soil. A measure resulting at 7.0 is deemed neutral. The higher the number indicates greater alkalinity, therefore the lower the number the more acid. It all...
Read More >>What in the garden do you want to fertilize? I have a bit less than a half an acre of gardened landscape to nurture. There is only one of me. Therefore I have to streamline much of what I do in the landscape to make it and keep it presentable. That means I have already applied a granulated fertilizer to the grounds this past week. Via a hand spreader I walked around the entire area applying...
Read More >>I had a good day working on my grounds today. I have about a half an acre in plantings which includes a lawn, well a lawn of sorts....I takes me ten minutes to mow it. I would like to have more lawn than I actually have allowed, but life hasn't turned out that way. Snowdrops, some scilla and eranthis are in bloom already. Narcissus and some tulip foliage are showing. I cleaned up some of...
Read More >>Winter has been particularly punishing to evergreens these past two years. Last winter severe winds during subzero temperatures severely damaged or killed yews. This winter the heavy snow coupled with rain at Christmas froze a layer over the spreading and some upright conifers crushing them early in the season. Subsequent snows with no January or February thaws added more weight to those already smushed disfiguring many. While spreading a granulated fertilizer throughout my extensive gardens...
Read More >>The Formal Landscape Little in American life today is formal. Yet most of our Minnesota home landscapes are still designed, if they are designed at all, more or less formally. Early Minnesota city & town streets and lots were plotted by newcomers from Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and New England. Streets were straight and lots were rectangular. Houses for most buyers were boxy and had to be built fast! The Vikings were coming! One of...
Read More >>I have been monkeying around "garden" for more than 60 years. I have been landscape gardening for forty of those same years. When I had finally grown up, about twenty years ago, and got started with Masterpiece Landscaping, Ltd. I had to begin to sell my ideas about beautiful landscaping to clients. With guys I could talk form. With gals one learns to talk color. I have never, ever heard a male human being announce as absolutely...
Read More >>Here we are with the beginning of March. The snow I have on my grounds still covers everything. It has piled between two and four feet everywhere. I saw Earth for the first time last week driving along a freeway. Naturally, Earth appeared only on the North side of the east-west road. With the exceedingly bright sun reflecting off of everything white, this is the time of the year susceptible evergreens and smooth-barked trees are...
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