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19 May 2013
May 19, 2013 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin battling the Minnesota climate, garden seasons, shrubs and trees, The Art of Landscaping

SPRING 2013: The Most Colorful Landscape Garden in Decades and Decades

We write mostly about Minnesota...Twin City area landscape gardening issues. With this in mind, I hear countless complaints about this Spring, Spring 2013 is a lousy one. I am one of these complainers....Cold, rainy, cloudy, windy, snowy for the first six weeks, more rain, more and more rain. Here it is only 30 days until the days become shorter...and shorter....and shorter. I am extra depressed already.....but then, before the rains, the heavy ones today, Sunday,...

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10 May 2013
May 10, 2013 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin battling the Minnesota climate

The Significance of May 10 in the Twin City, Minnesota Area

There have been many complaints about this year's Spring in Minnesota. Where's the heat? Where has the Sun been? Why all this Snow in late April and May? Well, it's either too little CO2 if you accept modern mythology regarding Global Warming......now changed to "Climate Change" to cover all fronts political and climatological. We have had a throw back to my childhood decade....when these 'colds' in April and May were quite the habit.....and a very...

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15 Apr 2013
April 15, 2013 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin About Masterpiece, shrubs and trees, The Art of Landscaping

New Plants worth Talking about….and then Planting….

Landscape gardening is a visual art form.....and so is the magician's magic. Beethoven's masterpieces are aural art forms. We want to exert feelings to the eye as Beethoven causes for the ear.....after all ...beauty is better than the ugly, but remember, if everything is equally beautiful, it is logically equally ugly. The abcs of creating a beautiful Landscape garden is the major question in three parts: What is to be planted Where, and Why should...

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15 Apr 2013
April 15, 2013 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin battling the Minnesota climate, Bulbs, garden seasons

Snow and Cold getting rather Old….

This snow and cold business here in 2013 "Spring" Twin Cities is getting kind of OLD. Mother Nature seems to be taxing us for the magnificent, best of all Springs, which occurred just one year ago when Spring arrived on March 15 and ruled until the beginning of Summer in late June. Eranthis, Snowdrops, and Siberian squill all began bloom last week in our grounds. They are still in bloom but completely unnoticed under ten...

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11 Apr 2013
April 11, 2013 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin battling the Minnesota climate, Pruning, shrubs and trees

How to Save Conifers with 8 Inches of Snow in the Twin Cities and More Expected…

We have had late, late Spring 'winter' storms in the past. One, one of the worst, occured as late as early May with a dumping here of 13 inches. My conifers weren't into teenagers or adults yet. They were still so cuddly and easily managed. Not all conifers are equal in their abilities to stay in one piece during excessively heavy snowfalls. Let me start with the toughest....or better yet, those which easily handle heavy...

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02 Apr 2013
April 2, 2013 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin garden maintenance, Plant health

Learning More than you probably Want to Know about Nitrogen in the Garden

In all of my years of gardening various political religious sects have deified things organic. Sixty years ago and beyond, much of the worship emanated from Emmaus, Pennsylvania. Now city folks and others who blaspheme America's oil industry have picked up the chant. There is no doubt in my mind the best of all fertilizer additions one can apply to outdoor growing things in general, is good old 1-1-1 well rotted cow manure. But, ow...

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22 Mar 2013
March 22, 2013 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin About Masterpiece, Residential Projects, The Art of Landscaping

Among the Best People in the World are Those Who Garden Their Grounds

If there are 1,243,772 pieces of knowledge necessary to command ones personal computer, I know about 17 and a half. I spent years fighting the idea of placing my face in front of an invention with a screen that was even more vacuous than what usually appears on television. Eventually, I discovered that I was wrong.....but I was too late along in life for me to recover from lost time gathering computer expertise. Nevertheless, the...

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21 Mar 2013
March 21, 2013 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin perennials, The Art of Landscaping, winter landscapes

When to Cut Back “Used” Perennial Foliage to Embellish the Winter Landscape

Preparing for your ideal winter landscpe garden is begun in late fall before the first snowfall. This is particularly true of your landscape garden is more the feature of your grounds than lawn. Lawn is normally flat grounds. Although it certainly supplies negative space in winter as in summer, when it occupies large sweeps of grounds, lawn doesn't bear captivating shadows in winter because it IS flat. My 2/3rds of an acre of grounds, nearly...

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17 Mar 2013
March 17, 2013 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin winter landscapes

THE SHOCKING BEAUTY OF THE WINTER GARDEN

I visit my landscape garden almost every day of the year. After all, I do live in paradise on Earth. Even if not perfectly planned, the pleasures topped by inspiration and gratitude however selfish they may seem, are almost incomparable in life's experience even competing with the joys of the family, and offering easier solutions when things go wrong. I have made a list of plants during these winter walks while examining my various gardened...

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22 Feb 2013
February 22, 2013 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin battling the Minnesota climate, garden seasons, The Art of Landscaping, winter landscapes

Beauty in the Well Planned Minnesota Landscape Repeats Itself

Three to five inches of light gentle snow settled once again upon our Twin City Minnesota landscapes again last night stretching to a few moments ago. It is still cloudy. There are no shadows, no forms performing radiantly on stage showing off their grace and form, their dark and white, the purity of beauty equal to Nature's best. Gray it may be, but the purity for beauty is just as gracious, just as awesome, quieter,...

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