Dr. Mark Seeley, author of the Minnesota Weather Almanac and a regular radio commentator on climate and weather, spoke at the Rice County Horticultural Day this morning. Seeley gave the full-house of gardeners attending the event an overview on how the weather is changing in Minnesota, with a few ideas on how to accommodate it. Here are my take-aways from…
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A One Hour Tropical Vacation
Update from 2018: I have visited the wonderful Marjorie McNeely Conservatory many times since I wrote the post below. (Apologies for the tiny photos from 2008.) You can check out my article about the conservatory’s 100th anniversary here. I was in St. Paul on business today, and one of the events I had scheduled was canceled. So, I found myself…
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I Must Have Fruit!
There’s a funny scene in the movie Time Bandits, in which Michael Palin of Monty Python and travel book fame, has a relapse of his “problem,” and yells, “Oh, Pansy, I must have fruit!” When my daughters were younger, this was a much-quoted line in our house, in part because we all like fruit. I like to grow fruit, too,…
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Red-Twig Dogwood: Winter Wonder-Shrub
In summer, gardeners rely on flowers and foliage for color. But what do you do in winter? In Minnesota and other northern or snowy places, planting red-twig dogwood is one solution. This hardy shrub features bright red stems that stand out against a backdrop of snow. Botanically the plant is Cornus sericea or Cornus stolonifera, but it goes by many…
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The Smother Method
The smother method of starting a new garden is simple in theory. Layout your bed, mark it with flour or a landscape spray paint, mow inside the bed to the shortest height on your mower, then spread several sheets of wet newspaper on top of the area you want to kill, cover it with black landscape fabric, weight it down,…
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