And what is a Minnesotan supposed to do when it is April 09, 2012, and it is already May 15th in the landscape garden, and frost is in the forecast for the evening? French lilacs in open sun are about to bloom, redbuds in the city are already opening their flowers, crab apples appear about to open theirs as well and the temperature is expected to drop to 26F tonight. If your tomatoes were already set out...
Read More >>Sunny Schneiderhan, starette landscape gardener beautifying her space in Dinkytown USA, reported active sawflies on a mugho pine last Wednesday. Fortunately, for those of us who live in suburban Twin Cities where our horticultural zone is not yet #5, we usually have a four or five day respite from such attacks than our city brothers and sisters who grow Scot's and mugho pines. Do note and remember that Spring on a sunny South and the Southwest...
Read More >>It is cold today....for this Spring, that is.....windy and 40 degrees F. ......a normal Spring after a normal Winter, but not for a winter without a January and February, that is this past season of little precipitation and no traditional Minnesota wind and cold. Last year we wouldn't have noticed. Checking out our landscape grounds, I noticed last Saturday, March 24, 2012, that the following are now in bloom performance: Merrill Magnolia, Leonard Messell Magnolia, Weekend Forsythia,...
Read More >>I have never been to Japan, but have spent almost a year of my life roaming around the traditional landscape gardens of England, Scotland and Wales. I moved from one paradise on to another, again and again. The United Kingdom government is interested in accruing money for the National welfare, and know full well, the art of the Landscape Garden is the Kingdom's most cherished art form.....financially, in numbers of visitors to these Edens, and historically the...
Read More >>The most beautiful winter landscape garden in my thirty eight years of living here in Minnetonka occurred this winter, 2011-2o12. In this the first winter without a January or February in the Twin Cities to my knowledge, there was little snow, no rain, and no cold. The yellows of the golden chamaecyparis, sunkist and yellow ribbon arborvitaes, the plum of the Andorra junipers, blues of the Dwarf Colorado blue spruce and even the blue pfitzers...
Read More >>Snowfalls are great for Landscape Companies in cold climes like Minnesota who have a snowplowing business in Winter. We, at Masterpiece are one of them. Winter is a good time for certain kinds of pruning, but most gardens in these parts are in deep sleep this time of year. Thank God for plowing driveways. I have just spent a couple hours prowling through my own gardened grounds to do some pruning and prepare some conifers for a...
Read More >>When is a weed a weed. When it is a dandelion? Well, maybe....usually yes, because dandelions makes a lovely lawn appear ugly, expecially when the seeds are produced. Because the seeds are produced in such numbers, dandelions become a more noticeable weed. In our Masterpiece Landscaping dictionary, a weed is defined as "a plant out of place". Our Masterpiece Landscape garden where I live doesn't have much lawn. If there are dandelions, they occur occasionally...
Read More >>There may be some global warming folks, but it was not caused by mankind and will not be a threat to human existence nor the Earth itself. Do you remember that terrifying 8.9 earthquake last March off northeastern Japan? Well, it seems it tampered with the length of an Earth day a bit. Read the following article from SPACE.com: HOW THE JAPANESE EARTHQUAKE SHORTENED DAYS ON EARTH "The massive earthquake that struck northeast Japan Friday...
Read More >>The present winter, the one without a January and February, has been an agitating one. We've been waiting winter's arrival since November 13th , the anniversary of the 25-35 inch snowfall the year before; the winter without any thaw in both January and February. The snow kept coming down and piling up around us. Landscape gardens disppeared, hibernating under the snow until mid March a year ago. I couldn't walk my grounds all snow...
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