My Northern Garden

Beautiful Seeds

I really like the look of plants with dramatic seed heads, both in the garden and in nature. This photo was taken at the Carleton College Arboretum. What’s your favorite plant for seed heads?

Saturday was a strangely warm day for November in Minnesota, and I took the opportunity to do some final weeding in my yard and gardens. Our lawn has one section where the grass mysteriously has died over the past year, and it’s very prone to a certain dandelion-like weed. So, that got a good going over as did two shrub…
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Softening Your Garden Edges

How to

In early August, I had a chance to visit the garden of impressionist painter Claude Monet at Giverny, France. We were visiting our youngest daughter, who was studying in Paris. Being so close, I had to visit one of the most famous gardens in the world. The garden is lovely. (You can check out my gallery of photos here.) And,…
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Eek! Mice in the Straw-Bale Garden

How to

With fall coming on so quickly, I’ve finished with the straw-bale gardens for the year. I had good tomato harvests from the bales, and I can see where in certain circumstances bales would be the way to go with vegetables. The vegetables grew well, were disease-free (one of the biggest benefits of the bales, in my opinion) and had good…
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Will Green Tomatoes Ripen on the Counter?

How to

I got a chuckle out of yesterday’s gardening column in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, in which garden writer Bonnie Blodgett bemoaned her difficulties getting green tomatoes to ripen indoors. I’ve also struggled with that issue, but am having better than usual luck this year, just lining them up on the counter. Most of the tomatoes shown were picked about…
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