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Garden Blog
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08/26/10
State Fair Inspiration
 Today marks the beginning of another Great Minnesota Get Together! Don’t forget to spend some of your time at the fair exploring the Agriculture/Horticulture building for great gardening inspiration. You’ll find information on MN developed plants, farm and veggie crops (see the biggest pumpkin, it’s my personal favorite!), flowers, fruits and wines, Christmas trees, and honey and bees. New this year in the building is also The Dirt display, featuring demonstrations and speakers on various topics every day of the fair, in fact Minnesota Nursery & Landscape Association (MNLA) will have a speaker there every day. Outside the building, spend some time relaxing and exploring in the wonderful display gardens designed and maintained by MNLA members. The gardens are a great place to learn and take in some garden beauty while recharging your batteries for another food run. Click here to learn all about the MNLA State Fair Display Garden.
Get to the fair! http://www.mnstatefair.org by Stephanie Girgen
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08/05/10
Butterfly Magnets, Pt. 2
 I’d like to mention another noteworthy insect I’ve seen flitting from flower to flower. Swallowtail Butterflies are flying around out there! If you’d like to attract Swallowtails to your garden try planting Echinacea (Cone Flowers) or Monarda (Bee Balm).
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08/04/10
Vegetables: Buy or Plant?
 Maybe you’ve started out this season with great plans of growing your own vibrant, healthy vegetable garden. My neighbor did, but then after rain, heat, insects and weeds she gave up and mowed over her garden last week. Now the neighborhood rabbits have salsa.
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07/27/10
Go ahead and take a breather
 That garden bench in the dappled Maple shade looks rather attractive right about now, don’t you think? Most gardeners get mighty weary of it all come August, but we’re told this is no time to hang up the trowel. If we’ve kept our nose to the grindstone (whatever that means), the gardens and landscape should be in pretty good shape this time of year. On the other hand, weeds do continue to germinate, perennials do need watering and deadheading and the annuals begin to look a bit forlorn. And, heavens hasn’t the darn lawn been demanding?! Can’t believe it still needs mowing twice a week and then some.
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07/15/10
Butterfly Magnets
 The butterflies have been fluttering around my yard the past couple of weeks. I’ve seen Monarchs and Red Admirals on the Asclepias incarnata and Asclepias tuberosa (Swamp Milk Weed and Butterfly Weed), Coreopsis (Tickseed), Joe Pye weed and my yarrow.
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06/29/10
Designing with vegetables
Recently I attended a seminar with Melinda Myers from Wisconsin. She has written many regional gardening books, and had some great tips on small space gardens and how to incorporate vegetables in your garden design.
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06/28/10
Fireworks in the garden?
A great annual used heavily in Minnesota is Purple fountain grass. This beautiful red-foliaged annual grass provides a nice burgundy accent in your containers and gardens and provides spikes of interest during the season.
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06/27/10
Now is the time to shop!
With the early start to the season and the cool May, many garden centers have product that is PERFECT for the picking right now! They have perennials and shrubs that are fresh and many exciting flavors for you to choose from.
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06/26/10
Garden Lilies
 Looking for a mid summer blooming perennial for your sunny garden that is easy to grow? Then choose a garden lily.
I was walking through my garden yesterday and was so happy to see the beginning of the summer lily bloom time. My Asiatic type lilies are starting to bloom, and I will have lilies blooming into August when the Oriental types (which are so wonderfully fragrant) start to bloom.
Lilies are so easy to grow! They love full sun sites (which means 6 hours or more of full sunlight every day) and evenly moist well-drained soils. If you have really heavy clay soils that don’t drain well, stay away from lilies.
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06/07/10
Japanese Tree Lilac
 What an early spring we have had! It seems like so many mid June blooming plants are peaking here this first week of June.
One of those mid June plants is the Japanese tree lilac (Syringa reticulata). You’ll notice them everywhere in the landscape, as their striking creamy white fragrant flowers are at their peak right now. I notice a lot of them at the local shopping mall.
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