Month: June 2013

30 Jun 2013
June 30, 2013 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin shrubs and trees

How I Began Learning the Names of Northland Trees

In elementary school and in ninth grade general science and tenth grade biology classes in the St. Paul public schools where I attended, students were 'forced' to develop tree leaf collections. There was no political pressure then to worship native plants as superior to those 'imported' since the times of early English settlement. Ignorance of vegetation, woody or herbaceous is so vast among the general American population these days of nearly everyone under age 60,...

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19 Jun 2013
June 19, 2013 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin About Masterpiece, battling the Minnesota climate, perennials, Plant health, The Art of Landscaping

The Special Spring Landscape Garden, Year 2013

The landscape garden, 2013, has been the best ever this Spring......despite its short supply of dry and warm weather. But that's the point.... Remember that the Twin Cities is at the western edge of America's watering zones with the vast prairies beginning just to our out of town Twin City West. The prairies are the prairies because of their lack of moisture....end of story. The wetter East simply spread westward for Spring, 2013....along with some...

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16 Jun 2013
June 16, 2013 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin Plant health, shrubs and trees

The Public Knows Nothing about Plants Anymore

I own almost 3/4 of an acre of landscape garden surrounding my rather boxy, not terribly attractive house. It was a white painted house when my family moved in, January 1, 1974. It was seventeen below zero Fahrenheit that evening. There is no uglier color for a house in Minnesota to be painted. Winter with its cold white, is the landscape season equal to all other seasons combined. Worse, the adjacent shutters were blue visually...

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11 Jun 2013
June 11, 2013 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin About Masterpiece, battling the Minnesota climate, The Art of Landscaping

SPRING in our Northland….2013

Cool to cold, mid January to mid June......snow to rain, more rain, and a helluva lot more rain, mid January to mid June in the year of our Lord, 2013, Northland USA. What has this cooling and wetting meant for those of us oriented to the beauty of life living outside brick, concrete, asphalt, and flourescent lighting? For plants, the overwhelming number of them from an inch to 100 feet of stature, this has to...

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02 Jun 2013
June 2, 2013 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin Pruning, shrubs and trees, The Art of Landscaping

When is a Shade Tree Not a Shade Tree?

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...

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