Cottage Gardens and Cineraria

The English Garden at the Minneapolis Home and Garden show is actually a series of gardens, each designed and planted by a Twin Cities landscaping firm. I’ve only been to Britain once and gardens were not on the agenda, though my younger daughter, then age 9, and I had a great time at the London [...]

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New Northern Gardener Available

The March/April issue of Northern Gardener is now available and it’s all about spring–just what we need on a day when the landscape looks positively Arctic with the wind and fresh snow. Debbie Lonnee, Northern Gardener’s horticulture editor, wrote the cover story on new annuals for 2008. Debbie recommends a half dozen great newer [...]

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Update on the Instant Garden

My Instant Garden seeds have germinated and tiny little cotyledons (first leaves) are stretching toward the light. I was concerned about how much stretching was going on, so I moved the pot to this precarious post under some florescent lights in my kitchen. The hope is the close light source will allow the plants to [...]

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Prince of Peonies Back Online

Many Minnesota gardeners are familiar with Harvey Buchite, formerly co-owner of Rice Creek Gardens in Blaine and an expert on all things peony. Harvey is a frequent speaker at gatherings of gardening enthusiasts. A couple of years ago, he and his wife, Brigitte, who was trained in horticulture in her native Austria, decided to [...]

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New Resource for Native Plantings

When we built our house nine years ago, I planted wildflowers in an area behind our lot. That area backs up to a walking path and several city-owned ponds. Knowing little about prairies or wildflowers at the time, I bought a wildflower seed mix for the Midwest, prepared the area, scattered the seed and hoped [...]

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Forcing Red-Twig Dogwood

Back in December, I blogged about how wonderful red-twig dogwoods are for providing winter color. In answer to my question about whether to coppice my dogwoods, a reader suggested taking out one-third of the branches each winter and putting the cut branches in water to encourage bloom.
It’s been so cold recently that I haven’t felt [...]

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A One Hour Tropical Vacation

I was in St. Paul on business today, and one of the events I had scheduled was canceled. So, I found myself not far from Como Park with an hour to spare. Impulsively, I set out for the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory, the tropical garden in Como Park. It was just a few minutes after [...]

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My Instant Garden

One of the trends driving garden-marketing of late is the supposed homeowner desire for low-maintenance, no-maintenance and instant gardens. This is driven largely by younger homeowners (say, under 40) who have more money than time, and want a backyard that’s a refuge not a work-factory. Now, some people think if you want no-maintenance, the solution [...]

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I Must Have Fruit!

There’s a funny scene in the movie Time Bandits, in which Michael Palin of Monty Python and travel book fame, has a relapse of his “problem,” and yells, “Oh, Pansy, I must have fruit!” When my daughters were younger, this was a much-quoted line in our house, in part because we all like fruit. [...]

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Time to Order Seeds

With the wind howling outside and highs below zero predicted for tomorrow, it seemed just the right time to make my vegetable seed order. This is the day of the year when my time to garden seems endless and my energy high. Reality will no doubt set in sometime between April and June, but seeds [...]

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