The bees love the nectar from baptisia.

With the sun out (finally) and the temperatures heating up, many plants have started to bloom and the bees and butterflies are returning to the garden. There were swarms of these large bumblebees working over the Baptisia ‘Twilight Blues’ that I have planted in the front garden. The size of this plant makes it almost like a shrub and the flowers, while fairly short-lived, are gorgeous. The bees seem to like them, too, and I know they get pollinated because every fall the black seed pods can be found dangling from the plants.

This past weekend, I took a class on wildflower photography at the North House Folk School in Grand Marais. I’ve wanted to take a class at the school for some time, and this course on using macro-lenses to photograph wildflowers on the North Shore seemed a perfect fit. Our instructor was Bryan Hansel, a local photographer who has taken some amazing images of the rugged beauty of the area around Grand Marais. We were a diverse group of photographers, from fellows who have been shooting for more than 50 years to relative newbies. This was my first time using a macro (closeup) lens, so I had a lot to learn, but what a great way to do it! Below is a gallery of some of the images I took.

Thanks Bryan and North House for a great experience!

This is a section of the meadow with about two-thirds of the flags in. The flags mark where native plant plugs have been planted.

I was out in my meadow area the other day when some neighbors walked by on the path and asked, “What are those orange flowers you’re putting in?” Those are insurance — a guarantee that I won’t accidentally pull one of the native plants I’m putting in this wild area.

The meadow is a somewhat neglected space that over the years has gotten overgrown with invasive or unwanted species, especially giant ragweed and my personal nemesis, wild parsnip, a nasty invasive that can lead to blisters and burning on skin that touches it.  (Trust me on that one. It hurts.) Last fall, I knocked back the weeds using a combination of cutting and chemicals. I mowed the field this spring, and have been hand pulling (or cutting) regularly to keep the weeds down while my natives take root.

Flats of plugs from Prairie Moon Nursery.

The natives will be planted in two waves. The first are these gorgeous plants I bought from Prairie Moon Nursery in Winona. I ordered a total of 152 grasses and forbs as plugs to make sure that the meadow had a decent start. I also ordered seeds for a number of forbs (that’s the technical term for wildflowers) and have been starting those using the winter sowing method. I’m guessing it will be another two to three weeks before I get a chance to plant those.

This is a big, slightly costly, work-intensive experiment, but I’m enthusiastic about it. I’m really hoping for a space that provides habitat for birds and beneficial insects as well as beauty for all the folks who walk by our garden. So far, it has inspired a lot of conversation and a few people offered tips on making sure the natives take hold. For instance, at the suggestion of one walker, I mowed a part of the meadow to make sure my plants get plenty of sun. We’ll see how things go as the summer progresses. In the meantime, if you see my orange flowers, imagine waving grasses in fall, or blooms in pink, yellow, purple and white in spring and summer that will replace them in seasons to come.

A little almond extract in the filling brightened the rhubarb crisp.

Strawberries and rhubarb go really well together, and even though the local strawberries are not ripe yet — and may not be for awhile — I decided to make a strawberry-rhubarb crisp last night.

It took less than 15 minutes to throw this recipe together, including walking out to my rhubarb patch to grab the stalks. After 45 minutes in the oven, the rhubarb crisp emerged fragrant and bubbling. Because rhubarb is very tart, this recipe has more sugar than I usually use in crisps, although not as much as it would need if it were entirely rhubarb. The strawberries add a nice sweet flavor that complements the rhubarb and the addition of almond extract gives it a nuanced flavor.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Filling:

4 stalks rhubarb, cleaned and cut into 1/2 inch pieces

1 quart strawberries, rinsed, cut into quarters

2/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup flour

1/2 tsp almond extract

Mix strawberries and rhubarb with sugar, flour and extract. Put in a pie dish.

Topping:

In the same bowl you mixed the filling ingredients, mix 1 cup rolled oats, 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon and 4 tablespoons melted (or very soft) butter. Pour the topping over the filling, and bake. You may want to put a pan under the crisp in the oven in case it drips.

We didn’t have any ice cream or whipped cream in the house, either of which would have been delicious with this, but both my husband and I had a big bowl and thought it was great — the perfect end to a busy weekend spent in the garden.

Rhubarb is a very easy perennial vegetable to grow. It likes a lot of fertility in the soil so I have my rhubarb growing in a spot that formerly had my compost bin over it.  You can often get a division of rhubarb from a fellow gardener, and like many perennials, rhubarb does not mind being divided every few years. University of Minnesota Extension has an informative fact sheet on growing rhubarb, if you’d like more information.

What’s your favorite rhubarb recipe?

For the plants, this is their final exam before graduation. They’ve been tested like crazy in greenhouses and growing ranges, but always under the care of horticulturists. Now, they must undergo testing by regular gardeners — avid gardeners, of course, but ones that have other jobs, families and the usual distractions from plant maintenance. Good luck to them all!

I got my Proven Winners plants first, so this post deals largely with them. The box included a mix of annuals and perennials, and I put most of them into containers. I especially like the container pictured above with this dark purple coral bells (Dolce® ‘Blackberry Ice’), and a new pink mini-petunia (Supertunia® ‘Flamingo’). I added a side-oats grama, a Minnesota native grass that will be part of my meadow planting. I love the textures of the three plants together and think the pink and purples complement each other.

The package also included some new begonias (Surefire™ ‘Rose’), so I combined them with a red calibrachoa (Superbells® ‘Pomegranate Punch’) in a two matching lime green pots. I’m hoping these will do well in the sunny area in my front garden. I used the same combination, along with a dainty ‘Diamond Frost’ euphorbia in another container near the front entry.

Not all the new plants went into containers, however. A diminutive sedum was planted in the front garden, where it will echo the shapes and colors of my other sedums. A couple of new bright purple verbena (Superbena® ‘Violet Ice’) were planted in my Mom’s garden, where they will probably get better care than any of my plants. That lady definitely has a green thumb!

Finally, I have two plants I’m still figuring out where to put. One is a new goji berry—Sweet Lifeberry® (Lycium barbarum) which is said to grow 12 feet tall. I think I have a good spot in back for it, but any time you have a 12-footer, you’ve got to stop to think. The last one is a plant I’ve never heard of—Creme Fraiche™ deutzia. I like its variegated foliage and hope to find a nice spot where it can complement the plants around it. The Proven Winners website recommends it be planted near yellow-flowered perennials or annuals.

As the summer goes on, I’ll report from time to time on how my trial plants are doing — including a post on my Sakata plants.  Which are your favorite of the new plants introduced this year?

Lots of germination; lots of rain.

I wrote some time ago about starting native perennials in winter sowing containers, and thought now would be a good time for an update.

Given our horrifically long winter, the plants in the containers are still pretty small. The good news is, germination occurred in almost all of the 28 containers. The two that have not germinated yet — and I do not expect them to — got pretty water-logged and the seeds may have rotted.

Because of the long winter, I did not end up following the usual winter sowing procedure. Normally, winter-sowers will put their plants out sometime during the winter and leave them there until it starts to warm up. Gradually, they will open the containers up, closing them at night to keep the plants warm. Minnesota springs are not usually gradual and this one was light-speed. On May 2, we had about 10 inches of snow on my garden and a temperature around 28. On May 14, the temperature flirted with 95. (Are we crazy to live in this climate? Very likely.) In any case, once it started to warm up, I just took the covers off of the winter sowing containers and called it a day. Of course, since then, it has been cooler, grayer and pretty wet.

I’ll let the plants get up to size and then, over time, transplant them out to the meadow where they will add color to the grasses and other plants I purchased from Prairie Moon Nursery.

My experiences with winter sowing have always been mixed. It does work — no question about it — but it does not work as well as starting plants under lights. It’s great for a situation like this one: I want a lot of plants and I want them cheaply.

What’s been your experience with winter sowing?

Leaf lettuce ready for harvest.

Earlier this week, I had my first vegetable harvest—some lovely leaves from my three lettuce-bowl gardens, dressed with a ranch-style dressing spiced up with snips of chives and parsley from the yard.

I love the taste of home-grown leaf lettuce, which seems softer and more earthy than the big, crunchy heads you get at the grocery store. These salad bowls were really easy to put together. I started several types of lettuce under lights indoors in early April. Later in the month, I planted them in large containers filled with a homemade potting mix.

Due to our erratic spring, I had to move them in and out of the house during really cold weather, but for a couple of weeks now, the bowls have been on the front patio, soaking up the sun and the rain and getting big and delicious.  One of the bowls contains ‘Pablo’ lettuce, and heirloom head lettuce from Seed Savers Exchange. The other bowls have a leaf lettuce mix from Renee’s Garden. I’ll harvest these using the “cut-and-come-again” method, taking leaves from the outside and letting them continue to grow.

Do you grow lettuce in your garden?

Pablo lettuce in pot.

For instant spring, plant some pansies. Garden centers are full of them now.

Imagine if the hunter or fisherperson in your household was told that the opening weekend had been moved back two, maybe three weeks? Anxiety? Disappointment? Lots of pent-up energy? Yes, to all that, as we gardeners well know having endured one of the most protracted ends to winter that I can recall. But, this weekend is it! The weather promises to be pleasant and warm. So, here’s what I plan to do:

• Clean up the gardens you can reach easily. You don’t want to be tramping around the yard too much (something I’ve been guilty of already this year). And you absolutely do not want to rake — let the soil firm up and dry out. But, if you can reach a bed from the sidewalk or other terra firma, clean up spent perennials and uncover any of those plants that want to grow.
• Buy some pansies! If you think you have been anxious to get out in the garden, imagine how nursery and garden center owners feel. Many garden centers will be open for the first time this weekend. Visit them, enjoy the beautiful plants they have in their greenhouses and buy some pansies to pot up for instant spring.
• Plant a little lettuce. I’ve started some lettuce indoors and those plants have been moved to pots and put on the front porch. But it should be warm enough now to  plant out lettuce or even start some from seed. Hold off on tomatoes or any warm weather crops.
• Prune Annabelle hydrangeas and other plants that bloom on new growth. Hold off on pruning lilacs and other spring-flowering shrubs until after they bloom.
• Build a raised bed. Easiest garden project ever. I’ve built several and have a new one in the garage ready to go out to the vegetable area in the next week or so. (If you want to get really fancy, check out my brother-in-law’s deck garden.) You can fill your bed with compost and soil to create a fabulous environment for vegetables. If you are not sure what to grow, check out Chiot’s Run’s 5-by-5 Challenge, which gives you suggestions and planting tips to grow a simple 5-by-5 foot vegetable garden.

What will you be doing this beautiful weekend?

This is the latest date I have ever recorded a first bloom.

A Facebook friend of mine wrote today that she is just plain numb when it comes to our weather here in Minnesota this spring. For my town, another 6 to 9 inches of snow is predicted for later today — yes, 6 to 9 inches on April 22! Last year, by this time, we had had several days in the 70s and 80s, whereas this year  we have not yet hit 60. If you live outside of the Upper Midwest, wrap your mind around that. According to the super-helpful Carleton College Weather Database, my hometown has not seen 60 degrees since Nov. 22, 2012 — five months!

But, no more complaining. We will endure. And, I have a bloom in my front yard. The Iris reticulata that is usually the first bulb to bloom in my front yard is up and blooming as of yesterday. April 21 is the latest I have ever recorded this first bloom. Last year, it happened on March 15! Here’s what I said then about past bloom times:

Last year, I first saw Iris reticulata in bloom on April 4; in 2010, I saw it on March 25; and in 2009, I recorded it blooming on April 16.

You can see how much variation there is in Minnesota, but having the earliest bloom time and latest in back to back years—and more than a month apart— is a bit disconcerting. The weather forecast calls for 60s and even 70s by the weekend, so I’m hoping that this will in fact be our last snowfall of the year.

You can grow hostas in containers with the new mini types.

It’s time for some group therapy — and fortunately, the Northfield Public Library has two wonderful programs scheduled to get us through this miserable spring. On Tuesday, Gregg Peterson, president of the Minnesota Hosta Society, will talk about “Hostas: No Longer the Green and White Plant that Grandma Had Around the Tree.” There are dozens of new hosta varieties introduced each year, and hostas now come in sizes from mini to massive. If you garden in shade, part-shade or anything less than full sun, hostas can add low-maintenance interest to your garden. Gregg’s talk will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 16, at the Library Meeting Room.

‘Sven’, one of the U of M’s newer varieties, is a great rose for northern gardens.

On Wednesday, April 24, the library will present another garden program. This one features Jim Beardsley of the Minnesota Rose Society. He’ll be talking about growing hardy roses in Minnesota. Many new roses are being developed that do well in our climate — even this year’s climate — and are well worth planting in Minnesota. In addition, old-fashioned roses often do well in Minnesota. Jim is a Master Rosarian and an accredited rose judge for the American Rose Society. Jim’s talk also begins at 7 p.m. in the Library Meeting Room.

With the cold temperatures, it may be three weeks (or more) before many of us will be able to really work in our gardens.  So, let’s band together and fight off the gloom with some garden talk.