New Northern Gardener Available

The July/August issue of Northern Gardener is available and it’s full of summer. The cover feature takes readers on a tour of a garden near Two Harbors, where the owners use structures and drifts of flowers to create a northwoods cottage garden. Be sure to check out the article on using succulents in your garden [...]

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Cottage Charm

You would hardly call our lovable snout house a cottage, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy cottage plants. Right now, I am lovin’ this hollyhock. Hollyhocks (Alcea rosea) are biennials, which means it takes two years for the plant to complete its lifecycle. I bought this plant in spring 2008 at the Dakota County [...]

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Garden Inspiration

This week I’ve had the opportunity to visit three stunning private gardens in the Twin Cities. Each of these gardens is on a city lot (although large ones) and is primarily tended by the homeowners. While each is glorious, the gardens had very different ambiance and show how the owners’ personalities come through in long-tended [...]

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The Deck Garden Today

My sister sent me an updated photo of her deck garden. As you can see, even in this small space, they have herbs galore (parsley, three basil plants, and rosemary), and a couple of very nice looking tomatoes. The family has already had pesto a few times this summer. With the heat we’ve had the [...]

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Vegetable Garden on the Deck? You Bet!

My sister and her husband have a large, sunny backyard, but they prefer to leave that space open for pickup football games and other neighborhood fun. (They have four children of their own and lots of little visitors.) So, when they decided they wanted to grow some vegetables, the solution was to build a deck-side [...]

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Persistent Plants: The Downside

Shortly after posting the item on an amazing tree that clings to life from the cliffs at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan, I got to thinking about another aspect of persistent plants: the invasives. These, too, find homes on the sandstone cliffs off of the south shore of Lake Superior — and once they’re [...]

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The Persistence of Plants

The tenacity of plants always amazes me. Faced with poor soil, too much sun, too much shade, competition from other plants–whatever the obstacle, many plants will continue to send out roots, sprout flowers or produce seeds. For a case in point, consider this photograph taken earlier this week at the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore near [...]

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Getting on the Baptisia Bandwagon

Baptisia is a perennial heading up the popularity charts — and having planted several tufts of it in my re-designed front-yard bed, I can see why. Baptisia australis is a North American native (as far north as Iowa) that the Cherokee tribes used for dye and to cure tooth-aches. Its use as a dye is [...]

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Best Perennials for Northern Gardeners

Today I dropped in on the Perennial Festival at Gertens in Inver Grove Heights. MSHS is participating in the event which includes several seminars each day, including one by horticulture editor, garden writer, and Bailey Nurseries production guru, Debbie Lonnee. After perusing the tables at Gertens, Debbie pulled out her 15 favorites among relatively new [...]

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Rain Gauge Report

I checked our rain gauge this morning and it showed 1.1 inches of much-needed precipitation. That lines up with the rainfall total at the nearest weather.com station at Sibley Swale, where the total was .91 inches. I may have had a little water in my gauge from watering earlier in the week. Whatever the amount, [...]

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