Category: The Art of Landscaping

11 Oct 2012
October 11, 2012 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin battling the Minnesota climate, garden seasons, perennials, shrubs and trees, The Art of Landscaping

The Beauty of October, “the Fall” of our Landscape Gardens

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...

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26 Sep 2012
September 26, 2012 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin battling the Minnesota climate, perennials, The Art of Landscaping

Harmony in the Landscape Garden with some Autumn Beauties

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...

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22 Aug 2012
August 22, 2012 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin About Masterpiece, boulders and stone, Residential Projects, The Art of Landscaping

Just a Note about Masterpiece Clients

I believe I write for all of us at Masterpiece that this landscape season we have had a wonderul group of new clients to add to our company's family of beautiful grounds. At a group of over 75 clients who gathered at our home grounds last Thursday I asked our clients how many were offered a plan by Masterpiece as we began our landscape projects at their homes. I knew the answer, of course. I...

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30 Jun 2012
June 30, 2012 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin About Masterpiece, garden seasons, perennials, shrubs and trees, The Art of Landscaping, winter landscapes

What is in bloom now at my Place?

Mine is a landscape garden grounds.   Most rooms differ one from another.  Most of the structure is managed by conifers.....after all, the winter landscape  in Minnesota is as long as  Spring, Summer, and Autum put  together.......six months if you really want to know.; Color is very important and is highly valued in my grounds.   But it is only equal to texture and secondary to form, both shape and size. I control color in a number of...

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29 Jun 2012
June 29, 2012 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin About Masterpiece, The Art of Landscaping

WHAT IS A WEED?

Whether in the Landscape Garden or in the standard Minnesota city and suburban Yard, the answer to the question "What is a Weed" should be the same: .....A PLANT OUT OF PLACE..... That is the answer, the whole answer, and nothing but the answer! We are familiar with landscapes covered almost entirely with lawn.  Until the population began moving  to the suburbs in the 1950s,  the only landscape generally seen was a copy of the neighbor's.........

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17 Jun 2012
June 17, 2012 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin About Masterpiece, The Art of Landscaping

Beethoven and the Classic Landscape Garden

"Beethovem is to the EAR what a Beautiful Landscape Garden is to the EYE. If they are to be enjoyed to their fullest, they must be allowed to enter the privacy of your thoughts and emotions to allow reflections of life and its beauty to enter your soul. One of my very favorite, indeed, perhaps my favorite mood piece to perceive aurally  to  blend into   my visual landscape garden inspiration,  is Beethoven's adagio  movement to his Spring...

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17 Jun 2012
June 17, 2012 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin perennials, shrubs and trees, The Art of Landscaping

Discovering the Landscape Garden

I began my drive to create a landscape garden 38 years ago this past Spring.   I had just been appointed to become Executive Secretary of the Minnesota State Horticultural Society and was winding up my graduate "studies" program and the University of Minnesota Horticultural Department. But the useable part of my education never came from those post graduate studies.   The two year effort was like being in the military service paying duty as a part...

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16 Jun 2012
June 16, 2012 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin Residential Projects, shrubs and trees, The Art of Landscaping, winter landscapes

Whatever Happened to Beauty in our American Lives?

A people's culture is imprisoned by the habits of the day.   It is designed by religion, politics, and education or the lack of it whereever people collect and settle. We live in an America that has been reduced to the indoors.   Perhaps the majority of its population now believe that the tomato is manufactured at the local super market or factory. We live in an America whose indoor college graduates in the social sciences believe that...

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21 May 2012
May 21, 2012 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin Ground Covers, mediums in OUR artform, perennials, Pruning, Residential Projects, shrubs and trees, The Art of Landscaping, winter landscapes

Developing a Landscape Garden….

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...

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