Last night, I was one of about 30 people attending a talk by Northern Gardener writer Eric Johnson at the Northfield Public Library on creating a big impact with a small garden. Eric gardens on a standard city lot in Minneapolis, yet he manages to have a prairie area, a water garden, a shade garden, a vegetable garden, and many…
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The tulips in front of my house are in full bloom today — about three weeks to a month earlier than previous years. In 2009, I wrote about these on May 13, and commented that they had lingered longer than usual due to cool wet weather. On the same date in 2008, the blog noted that the purple tulips at…
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I was talking with a gentleman whose garden Northern Gardener will be profiling in 2011. (Yes, we really work more than a year in advance!) He was excited about having a photographer come out to his place because he expected it would look really, really good this year. “We had a perfect winter for gardens,” he said. Why? Snow. Early…
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Except for my driveway, the raised boxes I use to grow vegetables and a couple of utility beds near the house, the straight line has pretty much been banned from my garden. Our house sits near a nature area, and curved shapes seem more appropriate in a wild(ish) setting. Still, I cannot help but appreciate the discipline and beauty of…
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The seasons are changing rapidly here — and, in true Minnesota style, changing back. We went from mid-60s much of last week to mid-30s today. Sunday I spotted the first bloom in our front yard. It is an Iris reticulata, an early blooming bulb that usually comes up about the same time as crocuses. (The timing is right on. My…
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