It's been very dry this Spring of our Minnesota northland. It also has been warmer than usual, thank God! Yes, Winter in Gopherland....which should be called Rabbitland, was colder and longer when I was four years old back in 1938, the first year I discovered "garden". Minnesotans, at least we urban ones, had tons of close friends and relatives who had to be visited including many owning a family farm. I loved visiting...
Read More >>We in the Twin Cities, Minnesota area this garden season thus far, are living our usual early May in middle April this year of our Lord, 2016. We have had a mild and short winter season. Being a landscape gardener, I have been rooting for a tad of global warming here in our Minnesota for the past sixty years....and my plea was almost answered until a few years ago of rough winter. The best garden...
Read More >>El Nino is a Pacific Ocean current event. The powerful primary Pacific currents normally in early winter make their turn North after hitting the American continent somewhere around southern Mexico. Occasionally they begin their northward turn much farther to the South bringing greater warmth from equatorial cloud and water which has a warming effect from western United all the way to Gopherland cakked "El Nino". Winter 2016 in...
Read More >>When, at what season, does, should, your landscape garden radiate its most inspiring beauty? The answer is simple......Whenever you enter your Garden of Eden. I have lived at my grounds for over 40 years, long enough to be able to do, genetically, mentally, physically, and culturally, what I was driven to do, planting and maintaining a beautiful landscape garden in some form or another. I have been very, very fortunate in life, and have many...
Read More >>I was about to write an article at this post today that tomorrow, October 10th according to records, is the average date for the arrival of frost in these Twin City, America environs. However, when I stepped out onto my gardened grounds, I spied frost covering the here and there. This frost had not been predicted by the pundits. In the upper regions of my bit over a half acre gardened grounds, frost arrived for...
Read More >>Spring arrived for a day or two several weeks ago and apparently didn't like the setting. It yielded to cold and rain, rain, and more cold.....and made the color gray exceedingly dull, the only color in town. Unless, that is, you have a bunch of healthy conifers decorating the world around your residence. Add a number of flowering shrubs and trees and you have indeed become blessed this Spring. And then, there are the ground...
Read More >>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...
Read More >>at least thus far fellow Northlanders..... Previous to yesterday the vast majority of my grounds was bare of snow. Where snow did exist, there was no accumulation, but only a dusting here or there in areas beyond the reach of the Sun. As most of you readers know, I am thoroughly in favor of our Twin Cities moving into Horticultural zone 5. In some grounds we are almost there, but msot of those grounds are...
Read More >>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...
Read More >>Well, what is that in bloom around the Twin Cities this year......April 9-20 depending on location of specimens? Among the trees there are the magnolias, pink being Leonard Messel and the white, the Merrill Magnolia. Both are pleasantly fragrant. The bright yellow flowering shrubs are the forsythias, probably Meadowlark or Northern Sun. They have been in bloom in most locations for about a week already. In older plantings one might see Nankin Cherry, a large...
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