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03 Jun 2011
June 3, 2011 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin About Masterpiece, battling the Minnesota climate, garden seasons, The Art of Landscaping

Masterpiece Garden Visits Extended

It is always the case that beautiful gardens must be seen most often at their very best......for the year, anyway. In Minnesota, today's garden quickly disappears into another piece of scenery never again to be seen in the form and beauty just witnessed.   The Sun, the light of our landscape garden stage, thank heaven, never stops  featuring Earth's exquisite beauty or squalor, for that matter. Gardens, like people, gain character with age. Our 2011 Minnesota...

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18 May 2011
May 18, 2011 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin Uncategorized

GARDEN TOUR AND PLANT SALE: May 26-27 and May 28

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 and shade GROUND COVERS (Canadian and European ginger, Iris cristata, Lysimachia 'aurea', Sedum 'communis',sweet woodruff); WOODLAND PLANTS (Brunnera, Celandine poppy, Jack-in-the pulpit, Jacob's ladder, maiden hair fern, Mayapple, sensitive...

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08 May 2011
May 8, 2011 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin battling the Minnesota climate

The Significance of May 10 in our Minnesota Gardens

This has been a difficult Spring thus far.....wet, cold, windy, following a long, long, Winter....thawless until midMarch. So what  does May 10 have to do with the complaining? May 10 is the average date of the last frost of the cold season in the Twin City, Minnesota area....How is that for good news! Keep in mind that October 10 is the average date of the first frost of the coming cold season each year. Experts...

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03 May 2011
May 3, 2011 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin battling the Minnesota climate, Bulbs, Plant health

A Report on Spring 2011

May first is the normal time for Leonard Messel or Dr. Merrill Magnolias to begin blooming in my landscape garden.   Normal meaning over the past thirty years.   Normal meaning this year....despite the relatively miserable Spring....more accurate ......the absent Spring  thus far. Dutch bulbs have done well.   At last my Siberian Squill have weeded enough to cover masses of space with the most beautiful blue matching any in the world.   For you beginning your landscape garden...

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21 Apr 2011
April 21, 2011 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin Uncategorized

Please Try Again

I received the following email from fellow landscape garden addict, Regina Reed: INSTALLING SPRING 44%  done   Installation Delayed.......Please Wait!   Installation Failed.....Please try again.   404 error:      SEASON NOT FOUND   Season "Spring" Cannot Be Located........  The Season you have been looking for might have    been  removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.  Please Try Again

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15 Apr 2011
April 15, 2011 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin battling the Minnesota climate, garden seasons

April 15, 2011…..A Look at the Minnesota Weather and Gardens

Income Tax Day has little to do with landscaping unless your business is Landscape Gardening.   However, most home owners interested in beautifying their immediate environment  are among the roughly 50% of our population who still  pay income tax each April 15.  (Nearly 50% of Amerians do not.)    I am much relieved that my forms assembled by a reliable, long time trusted accounting firm have been sent in, properly organized with all of  the important numbers in order...

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14 Feb 2011
February 14, 2011 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin garden seasons, shrubs and trees

Forsythia Will Be Blooming in Six Weeks

That's right.   Somewhere around April Fools Day the forsythia shrubs will be fooling everyone by showing off their  bright shocking yellow color.  The big one in size on the market these days is usually "Meadowlark"    This and many other of the larger forsythias which are sold in our climate zone four, usually can withstand a relatively cold winter and manage to bloom well.   However, even though these plants are  thoroughtly root hardy here, some may...

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14 Feb 2011
February 14, 2011 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin Pruning, shrubs and trees

Schedule for your Rose “Family” Tree Prunings in February and March

As we have mentioned before some of our favorite flowering and fruiting trees here in the Northland are members of the Rose family.....Anything "Prunus" , the plums, pears, apricots, and cherries, and "Malus" , the apples and crabapples.  Add to this list the Mountain Ashes, Sorbus, and the Hawthorns, Crataegus.   There are a number of shrubs in the Rose family as well, cotoneaster and ninebark, for example, but their value in the garden rarely rises...

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09 Feb 2011
February 9, 2011 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin battling the Minnesota climate

Check Your Roof for Ice Dams…..Call 612-919-5302 if you have a problem!

Would you call this the DEAD of winter?  When I was a kid 70 or so years ago when winters were colder, I think mid-February signaled the Dead part. We haven't seen 25 to 30 below zero temperatures here in the Twin Cities for a long time with one exception about 15 years ago. Snow came this year that weekend of November 13.  We have not had a major or even a minor snow melt...

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25 Jan 2011
January 25, 2011 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin The Art of Landscaping

Welcome to Garden Year 2011

Over my lifetime and deeper into the Minnesota past "Spring" began psychologically for the northern gardener somewhere around February first of ever year. Most of the garden seed and plant catalogues had arrived by then.  The dreaming about what could be and should be in the garden would begin.   We bought our seeds from Northrop King....a Minnesota company whose home was located in Northeast Minneapolis.    In the know garden people were Bachman's people.   They would...

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