This spring I blogged several times about my Bali cherry tree and my efforts to prevent the blossoms from freezing during our warm/cold/warm/cold April. I’m happy to report that many of the cherries did survive and, in some ways, I had a productive cherry season with a big harvest, most of which I pulled off the tree earlier in July….
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Well, look who showed up in my garden last week. This lovely fellow is the tomato hornworm (Manduca quinquemaculata), a caterpillar that can quickly defoliate tomato plants. He’s about 4 inches long and as fat as your finger, having just munched his way through a big branch on my tomatoes. The hornworms — they get the name because of a…
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This past weekend, I had a chance to visit about a dozen gardens on three tours: the Hennepin County Master Gardeners Learning Tour, the Red Wing Arts Association tour, and the Northfield Garden Club annual tour. One point struck me strongly at all three tours: Gardens are not just visual. We experience them with all our senses: sight, sound, touch,…
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I posted over the weekend about the Hudson, Wis., Artful Garden tour, which included a variety of large and small gardens and different garden styles. On Sunday, I attended the South St. Paul Garden Tour, a one-day event with eight private gardens (and one public) open to the public. The gardens illustrated many of the basic concepts of garden design…
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I toured more than a dozen gardens this weekend and saw lots of creative ideas, from antiques in the garden to exciting plant combinations. Two of my favorite ideas were ways to protect plants from marauding critters. This contraption is a deer deterrent in a large rural garden near Hudson, Wis. No doubt deer are a constant problem in this…
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