19 Sep 2013

Enter from Stage North……Winter and Six Months Of It

October 10th is the average date in Minnesota's Twin Cities and environs of winter's first frost. My landscape gardening experience reminds me that over the past 25 years this first frost date has been delayed to around October 14th. Thank God! Landscape Gardening is supposed to be an art form. One would never know that 'supposed to be' by looking at our Twin Cities' practice of the art. In our modern day one has to...

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18 Sep 2013

Some Woody Plants Aren’t What The Label Sizes them up To Be

In general the Minnesota home owner knows little to nothing about the landscape garden world. They do not understand it as an art form. They do not know the names or the habits of the plants in the neighborhood as well as on their property. A shade tree gets big, conifers are called pines, shrubs are bushy. No one really pays much attention to names. "I don't like spiraeas", a recent new client uttered in...

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14 Sep 2013

Autumn Yellowing Conifer Panic Suggests a Good Eye

Panic in autumn regarding Minnesota conifers is a condition of the human Minnesotan who notices yellowing of foliage among conifers and begins to worry about it. These Minnesota's conifers don't panic for they are doing their normal conifer thing....ridding themselves of yesteryears' leaves, foliage, needles, whichever you wish to call their stuff turning brown in the autumn....usually the leaves older than three to five years. Usually only the garden-aware Minnesotans pay attention to such environmental...

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