Now is the time to be analyzing your winter landscape. This is not the best year for such analyzing. The snow has been much too heavy causing many of our evergreen forms to disappear into the abyss of snowcover. Many of my four plus foot high shrub arborvitaes have simply disappeared into the drift totally unnoticeable and likely will remain so all winter long. The six to eight inch snowfall of last week whitened the...
Read More >>Remember, mid February to late March is the best time of the year to prune your apple and crabapple, pear, plum and mountain ash trees. All of thes fruit bearing woody plants are members of the rose family and are susceptible to a deadly bacterial disease, fireblight. If pruned during the growing season, in spring especially, there is great risk for infection particularly if fireblight happens to be active in the neighborhood or if following your pruning,...
Read More >>It is now the February landscape in Minnesota ....thank God, I have often remarked, February is a short month. The big Christmas snowfall is still with us. The normal January thaw was so brief it went by unnoticed. This winter of 2009-2010 is so far a real winter, but so far without the minus 20-25 degrees F temperatures which used to be commonplace here during my childhood. In the city, rabbits are chewing up many...
Read More >>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....
Read More >>If you wish to be happy for a day........Get drunk. If you wish to be happy for a week.........Kill a pig. If you wish to be happy for a month........Get married. But, if you wish to be happy for ever and ever............Plant a Garden!!
Read More >>December 25, 2009....Merry Christmas everyone. What a beautiful two days of winter scenery....especially if you have planted some conifer trees on your grounds so they can mix with their brethren naked this time of the year. But there comes a point where, like sugar, too much of something gets sickening or at least tiresome. Thirty plus inches of snow is quite beyond that point. I have just come into the house from my grounds where for...
Read More >>Today is October 10. So what? In the Twin City area October 10 is the date on the average of the first seasonal frost. As I am looking out my office window, I notice there is a broad coating of snow on the ground. It is likely that the temperature has reached 32 degrees Fahrenheit or lower. This usually means my coleus outside will be dead. A few of my perennials will show drooping foliage. This...
Read More >>Why mulch? About fifty years ago most suburban homeowners asked, "Why landscape my yard? I like lawn." Trees and shrubs seemed in the way keeping neighbor from neighbor. Fences were unfriendly. These were the days of the spreading lawns; the openness of meadow where lots of kids could play with moms nearby. No one talked much about mulch. In many quarters today, moms and children have disappeared. Fences are erected. Garden rooms have replaced the meadow in...
Read More >>No. Neither necessary or adviseable. If you are a devoted landscape gardener, and you live in Minnesota, and I were in charge of your psychological well being, I would advise planting not tulips, but another "Dutch" bulb, the narcissus. "Daffodil" is the "street" name for these bulbs. Are the bulbs in the world of the daffodil more beautiful than tulips? Not in my view. Nor likely in the view of the Dutch according to history. ...
Read More >>Winter! Yes, you guessed it.....or did you? Some people forget that Winter is a landscape season. Most Minnesotans divorce themselves from landscaping the home grounds for Winter. What is there to do but shovel snow? Garden fever begins sometime in February, but it is a low grade fever caused by impatience and garden magazines beginning to be noticed on various store shelves. Then the garden catalogues arrive causing real angst. Most Minnesotans pay no attention to how ugly their home...
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