Whole Lot of Budding Going On

I’m on bloom watch for my first bloom of the year. It looked like it would be earlier this week, but the cloudy, wet, cold weather of the past few days has slowed things down. Clearly, there is a whole lot of budding going on. I took the shot of this bud on one of [...]

Read Full Post »

A Piddling Problem

Now that the snow has melted, I can see where my dog, Lily, (looking guilty, at left) has been. Certain sections of our front yard are covered with “dog spots,” those brown circular marks created by dog urine. Solutions to dog spots are all over the web and range from having your dog drink tomato [...]

Read Full Post »

Getting Ready for America in Bloom

Sunday I visited the going-out-of-business sale at Lansing Hardware. Like many Northfielders, I am sorry to see the store close. Many times, Dave or Lee Lansing provided me with just the right piece of advice, as well as the right products, for a garden or home-repair project. I decided to check out the sale [...]

Read Full Post »

My Love-Hate Relationship with Sumac

For the last week or so, in between sleet storms, I’ve been watching robins pecking at the fruit on the three big sumacs at the edge of our property. (The robin is on the third sumac fruit from the left.) That’s what I love about sumac. It fits with our property and the environment around [...]

Read Full Post »

The Advantage of April

For gardeners in Minnesota, April can be a frustrating month. It’s warm; it’s cold; it’s snowing; it’s too wet; it’s too windy–it’s all of the above on a single day! Fortunately, we have the birds back. With the trees not yet leafed out, it’s much easier to see the birds that are inhabiting our yards [...]

Read Full Post »

Fun with Wood

It’s still too early to be tromping around in the garden, so the great weather on Saturday seemed like an invitation to finish some garden building projects. So, after picking up some deck screws and 2-by-2 posts at the local lumberyard, I started work on my new raised bed. (I bought the cedar for [...]

Read Full Post »

Squill’s Up!

The Siberian squill I planted last fall seems to have made it through the winter just fine. The first tiny leaves and flower buds emerged this week. According to the bulb sources I’ve checked, the blue and white flowers should appear within a week. I planted 80 squill bulbs–a relatively small number–but several sources [...]

Read Full Post »

A Trio of Garden Book Reviews

Spring is one of the big seasons for releasing garden books, and a pile of them have landed on my desk recently. Some will be reviewed in Northern Gardener, but we have room for only one review per issue, so I thought I’d review a few here as I wait for the snow to [...]

Read Full Post »

Northfield Joins America in Bloom

My town, Northfield, Minn., has decided to enter the America in Bloom contest this year. This morning, I attended a presentation on the program sponsored by the Northfield Downtown Development Council. Other Minnesota cities involved in AIB are Bemidji, Buffalo, St. Paul, and Red Wing, which will not be able to enter this year’s competition [...]

Read Full Post »

April Blooms Day?

Well, Mother Nature pulled an April Fool’s Day joke on Minnesota gardeners yesterday with several inches of slushy snow. While the pergola in my backyard, coated in snow, looks as lovely as it did in November, the novelty has worn off. I’m ready for spring.
However, inside the house, we have blooms. The red twig [...]

Read Full Post »