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 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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I will be doing most of the planting and installation on my new flower bed myself, but when it comes to garden design, I need help–preferably from a pro. So before I started digging the new bed (more on that in another post), I contacted Knecht’s Nurseries and Landscaping in Northfield for some design advice. Knecht’s offers a one-hour consultation…
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As I’ve been thinking about the new flower bed I’ll be installing this fall and next spring, a few plants rate as “must-haves.” One of them is Autumn Joy sedum, which is currently in bloom in my garden and in many others from Canada to the south. What a great plant! Its scientific names is Sedum ‘Herbstfreude’ so you can…
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Maybe it’s the heavy rains we have had this fall or a sign of global warming, but I’m finding surprising things blooming. Yesterday, I discovered new blooms on an English Larkspur (Delphinium elatum ‘Pagan Purples’). I bought the larkspur late in the spring in hopes of getting taller flowers in the back of my front bed. According to the plant…
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