Unfortunately for the broader community, our Minnesota landscape industry does not view ‘landscaping’ as an art form.

At university it is not taught as an art form. The ladies of the garden clubs love flowers. They do not consider the home grounds as a canvas for landscape garden beauty. Husbands are allowed to mow the lawn.

Cities often demand trees be planted along the roadways whether needed or not and without regard for beauty.

My city, Minnetonka, sells trees and shrubs to its public, whether needed or not…..at bargain prices…as a kind of civic duty which makes the bureaucrats feel good.

Years ago I subscribed to The English Garden with the expectation that those bloaks across the Atlantic would be smart enough to share pictures of the countless spectacular man-made landscape gardens I had seen which occupy so much space throughout the kindgom’s beautiful islands. Until more recent generations, landscape gardening there was indeed practiced and advertised as an art form. The upper classes once valued them.

The United Kingdom lures tourists by the millions to visit these masterpieces every year…..but alas, outside of a picture or two, the publication, The English Garden, wasn’t interested in selling beauty….it had products to sell for the ladies to buy. Garden centers run the industry. As it is here locally, those who sell flowers and trinkets in orderly fashion, plant flowers and trinkets in orderly fashion. Beauty is merely an out-of-use word.

See for yourself.

Page through any of the ‘flower’ magazines, or any pages where garden-oriented advertisements might be posted. Review the articles, the topics, pictures of settings. Look at the advertisements. Besides pretty flowers, what is the industry selling for your landscape garden?

Worse, we live at a time of history when we are informed and taught everything must be made equal…..We certainly don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. What would the neighbors think if someone’s home grounds actually were made beautiful?

Tour your neighborhoods. Much of landscape gardening of business and home grounds is in public view. To see a bad play or opera, lousy movies, or listen to a boring, revolting, or deceitful lecture, one usually has to pay something up front….Not so in the art world of landscape gardening. In nearly every neighborhood it’s free for the viewing whether you like it or not.

It’s November 18 according to my calendar. The “Fall” is about finished. The leaves of most of the standard deciduous woodies have dropped. Other trees and shrubs still show off colors and form only seen in autumn.

Still others, the evergreen conifers, will now move to center stage for act four of our Minnesota garden season play……the LONGEST ACT OF THE PLAY……equal to all other landscape garden acts combined.

It is their moment for unmatched beauty….beauty of form, texture, and color, whether solo or in choir …..standard bearers of life and substance for the year round, but especially front stage during ACT IV of our Minnesota year.

How beautiful is your winter home-landscape scene?

Take your time deciding. You have about six months to evaluate your Winter Act.

Do call us at Masterpiece if you need any assistance…

We are at 952-933-5777.