In our part of Minnesota the Winter landscape is equal in duration to our Spring, Summer, and Fall landscapes put together. Do your own adding. With the exception of some oaks, leaf fall is over before the first of November. Leafing out in Spring invarably begins the week of May 15 here in the Twin Cities dictated by the habits of our major deciduous shade trees. This lacing of our landscape is one of the...
Read More >>The Art of Landscape Garden is, of course, a Visual art form. So is 'Magic!' These are similar expressions, both being visual 'trickery'......The 'artists' want to control what the eye is to see, or what the brain thinks the eye preceives. In the ideal the art of landscape gardening should be to the eye, what Beethoven's compositions are to the ear. To the vast majoirty of home owners the grounds around the home they own...
Read More >>I have a 70 foot Ginkgo biloba at the east border of my landscape garden. The following diary of events is visually, one of the most spectaclar events of the garden's landscape calendar. The normal Ginkgo biloba growing in a happy location is a big, big tree. A generation or two ago here in the Twin Cities there was one 25 foot Gb of note growing at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis proper. It was considered...
Read More >>Americans are overwhelmingly indoor people these days. Their knowledge of Nature outside their windows seems to have disappeared from their minds and therefore language and action. The detachment from our outdoor world endangers who we are as a people, as a culture, and our abilities to survive catastrophe and our abilities to recognize beauty from the ugly. All of the billions of people living on our Earth could become housed within the state of Texas...
Read More >>As we enter the last month of the non-winter garden season here in our Northland, I regularly stroll my garden paths to evaluate the various arrangement of plants regarding their health, appearance, and harmony with their neighbors. Do they fill their space as beautifully among their neighboring notes for the eyes, as Beethoven adagios do for the ears? What 'note' is each plant playing. What music for your 'eyes' are you composing, and why. Remember...
Read More >>Autumn is running almost two weeks early this year. It is also likely that this Autumn will be more dull in color. Many falling leaves will have shown no color but dried up brown.....for the very reason that the summer was dried up and hot for our northern clime. The treeless line, that is the rainfall line indicating less than 15 inches of annual precipitation, runs just west of the Twin Cities at a slanting...
Read More >>About three weeks ago two 80 plus feet high cottonwoods began shedding their leaves cluttering up many of my garden paths and favorite plants. There is no apparent need for this shedding because these water hoggers have grown up over the past 50 years immediately beside an acre sized pond including a large part for which I pay property taxes. Too, I have noticed the shedding of white pine needles which started about two weeks...
Read More >>We learn these days from university that certain plants are evil. Their school room instructors demand the public help the sainted to rid our pristine world of certain things foul. Many of us humans are not quite yet actually on their lists, but a lot of plants are. We learn which ones both from people in politics and from neighbors with public enthusiasm who seek purpose in life. For twenty years now university disciples, people...
Read More >>During the evenings of the early part of this week, our Twin Citiy, Minnesota area was hit with night frost lows of 27F, 26F, and 32F, although at my place Wednesday evening's frost of 32F didn't arrive. Instead my landscape garden escaped the third day of damage with a low of 35F. The damage had already been done. The blooms of my 40 year old PJM Rhododendron were on the ground by Tuesday morning. Those...
Read More >>The temperature low last evening was televised locally as 29F. Plant deaths have been on my mind for the past 24 hours with the return of hard frost. Unaware, I discovered that my sprinkler system had turned on at 3AM this morning making most of the grounds appear frozen solid. I had potted about 100 Angelica gigas leftovers from last year's growth now anxious to get into bloom mood for August displays, but they all...
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