Garden Art in Public Places

During the recent America in Bloom competition, this sculpture was installed at the Northfield Public Library. Made by artist Jennifer Wolcott, the steel sculpture has the working title of Bookheads Dancing. In creating the piece, Wolcott walked all around the library looking for the right place to put the sculpture, and settled on this shady hosta garden near the Washington Street entry.

Placing art in a garden is tricky. It needs to complement the garden around it, without overwhelming the garden or being so small that the garden obscures the art. In a northern climate like ours, the art will be a dominant view in the garden for several months of the year. [While taking photos of the Wolcott piece, I found myself wishing (horrors!) that it were January so the sculpture would stand out more.] What I like about the Wolcott piece is it has many places for snow to rest, allowing the view of the work to change as seasons progress. This is a piece viewers would find intriguing even after it had been in place many years.

Northfield Note: I’m a member of the board of the Friends of the Library, which last night decided to offer partial funding for the purchase and permanent installation of the Wolcott sculpture. Others in the community are looking for additional support for the sculpture. If you would like to assist in funding the sculpture, contact Lynne Young at the library.

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Raspberry Face-Off and a Recipe

Well, it’s pretty clear which raspberry is bigger, but which is better? I did an unintentional taste test yesterday, comparing some of my home-grown raspberries (the little guy) with raspberries from the supermarket.

I bought the big guys for a baking project my daughter was doing, but we did not need them. After a few days in the refrigerator, they were getting a little soft, so I decided to make a cobbler. While cleaning the berries for the cobbler, I popped one of the big ones into my mouth and found it noticeably ….blah. While it had nice texture and lots of visual appeal, it lacked the wonderful sweet-tart bite of home-grown berries. This is the essence of the argument behind the local food movement: We have traded taste for convenience and good looks in food, and sadly, many people do not notice the trade-off because they so rarely eat food at its real peak.

Fortunately, I had some of my own berries to jazz up the cobbler, which is based on a blueberry cobbler recipe from Jane Brody’s Good Food Book, a cookbook I have used so much over the past 20 years that I’m on my third copy!

Raspberry Cobbler

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. In a baking dish, melt 2 tablespoons butter. In a separate bowl, mix 2/3 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar, 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder and a pinch of salt. Add 2/3 cup skim milk to the dry ingredients and whisk them around with a fork until you get a smooth mixture. Pour the batter into the baking dish with melted butter in it. Sprinkle on top of the batter 2 cups of raspberries (or blueberries, or peaches, or slightly cooked apples, or…use your imagination.) Bake for 30 to 40 minutes.

The berries will fall to the bottom of the dish, creating a fruity, pudding thing while the batter will become a delicious biscuit crust on top. Next time you have an abundance of local fruit, enjoy this recipe.

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Bee Condo Update: Solitary Insects Move In

As I noted a while back, critters have taken up residence in my bee condo. But they do not seem to be orchard mason bees. When an orchard mason bee moves into a condo like this, the signs are a rough mud plug in one of the holes. The bees use the holes to protect their offspring and fill the holes with baby bee food before plugging it up for safe keeping.

I have mud plugs, finally, but they are not rough. They are smooth, which I originally thought was a wasp, but the holes also include lots of cut up grass, which is not the usual m.o. for orchard mason bees. I did manage to catch a photo of one of the occupants leaving the condo the other day. He is longer than a bumble bee, also thinner, with a pronounced waist. Unlike the orchard mason bees, which are usually bluish, this bee was black and yellow.

Having long ago reached the limits of my knowledge of insects, I sent the photos above to David Zlesak, an extension educator at the University of Minnesota, editor of the U’s Yard and Garden News, and an occasional contributor to Northern Gardener. David is not a bee guy, but he knows an insect guy–Jeff Hahn–who checked out my photos and determined that it’s probably a leaf-cutting bee living in the bee condo. Leaf-cutters are solitary insects and effective pollinators. Their only negative is the leaf-cutting. I do have quite a few plants showing holes, especially one rose, further confirming the leaf-cutter theory. As Hahn noted, “They probably like your house just fine.”

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Bloom Tuesday, No. 13

Hard to believe it has been almost three months of bloom….and we’re in August already! Some perennials are looking a bit bedraggled this week, but the annuals still look nice. (Left to right, zinnia, nasturtium, and petunias.)

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An Anniversary Visit to the Landscape Arboretum

To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chanhassen, the staff and board of directors of the Minnesota State Horticulture Society toured the arb last Friday. The society played a key role in founding the arb back in the 1950s. Seeing the arboretum today, it’s hard to imagine the area as the field of corn and woods it must have been then.

The founders had a great vision for a research and display arboretum and that vision has been fully realized in the arb today. It’s artistically landscaped and provides an opportunity for northern gardeners to see plants that thrive in our climate. I’ve been a member of the arboretum for a few years and have taken one of the many classes the arb offers. (I’d love to take one on photography, but have not had a chance yet.) During the tour, I spent a lot of time in the rose area. (That’s a ‘Dainty Bess’ rose above and a ‘Charles Darwin’ English rose at right.)

Typical of enthusiastic gardeners in a large garden, we lost a few members of the group during the tour–not permanently, of course. But we gathered a few of the MSHS group for a photo. They are (from back to front): Linda and Glen Huebner, Malcolm Burleigh, Faye Duvall, Diane Duvall, Vicky Vogels, Rose Eggert, Tom McKusick, Lisa Williams-Hardman, and Brenda Harvieux.

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