One of the great advantages of living in Minnesota is the dramatic change in the landscape from day to day and season to season. Most of its citizens are no longer out door people, meaning that it is unlikely they are aware of the full truth of this statement.
There is no garden without light and people. Light upon the garden in the North is always in a rush. Today’s “garden” as seen, will never again return.
In the North, the most destructive season in any landscape garden is winter. Despite all of the money, education and effort spent on insecticides and fungicides and other pest control methods to protect our art form , weather rules supreme. A tornado, of course, governs first. Winter governs second. Tornados are rare. Winter is not.
What is a landscape garden? It is a piece of land made beautiful by an inspiring arrangement of plants. This garden is the “art” form most frequently expressed well or not well at home grounds.
In Minnesota our longest landscape season is winter. In truth rather than in fictional advertising, our winter landcape stretches from November first to April first…..five months at the minimum if we ignore the unwelcomed snowfalls which often occur in May.
At Masterpiece Landscaping, Ltd., we encourage our prosepective clients to remember these climatic rules of life in our northland. We always plan our settings with winter in mind.
A lovely flower garden in June and July is vacant in January. A grounds empty of evergreens appears dead throughout winter unless one is so lucky as to own a white oak which retains its lovely bronze foliage throught the cold season.
When I taught my classes, “Beauty in the Bleak Season”, and “Landscaping the Minnesota Home Grounds” through the University of Minnesota’s Extension Service throughout the 1980s, I wanted students to remember a basic rule of landscape garden art in Minnesota:
“All plants beautiful in winter are also beautiful in summer. But many plants beautiful in summer are not at all beautiful in winter.”
Study your landscape garden every day of your winter calendar. Is it beautiful? Do you sweep paths through the garden to get a better, closer feel of its beauty? Have you discovered yet, how beautiful a winter garden can be?
If your landscape garden is planned well, every day in summer and in winter, your garden walk will become slower and slower as you become more and more entranced by the sight and fragrance of its beauty.
Examine your home and business landscape today….this very winter. Is it as beautiful as it should be?
If not, call us at Masterpiece Landscaping, Ltd., at 952-933-5777 soon.