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 >>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 >>That age old saying, "One is closest to God in the garden" does not refer to a vegetable garden or flower bed.....or a home orchard. It refers to a landscape garden. What is a landscape garden, then?.......to be basic, it is a piece of land that is landscaped. It is a piece of land to be entered as one enters a cathedral or a cemetery park, classically to inspire the visitor by the most revered...
Read More >>"Our" garden world refers to the geography of Midwest USA with a Horticultural Zone of, let's guess, 3.8 to 4.8..........So, then.... What are ground covers in the landscape garden which I grow and have something to write about? Those plants whose forms tend to creep along the garden floor forming horizontal masses usually no higher than two or so feet, are called ground covers. The most popular groundcover in Minnesota regardless of horticultural zone, is...
Read More >>I spent much of this gray day involved in my own landscape garden. I am loathe to call it work, for once I enter the space, I am too lost in its aura, too mesmerized to feel any labor. I become occupied and governed in deeds the space has captured me to do. Not all autumns are equal. In my space this October has been one of the most beautiful ever. Traditionally in the Twin City area, the...
Read More >>The Landscape Garden is more than what most people consider to be garden. It is an enclosure to enter, stroll though, walking the paths up to and passed plants which might appear sculpture at one look, and framing after a few paces along the path. Envision a private woodland with windows and openings where beautiful forms or colors can be seen and beautifullly displayed. Benches in the distance entice visitors to find the path to a resting...
Read More >>Mulch, soil, leaves, river rock are all ground covers. Each have there own place in Earth's landscape with river rock probably best located at the river. The ground covers honored by this article are the ones which produce flowers and the coniferous evergreens that like to spread. Have you ever seen a Japgarden juniper over fifteen feet wide. You've missed a beauty if you haven't. Ground covers provide the negative space among upright forms in the garden...
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