Masterpiece Landscaping Blog

Over my lifetime and deeper into the Minnesota past “Spring” began psychologically for the northern gardener somewhere around February first of ever year.

Most of the garden seed and plant catalogues had arrived by then.  The dreaming about what could be and should be in the garden would begin.   We bought our seeds from Northrop King….a Minnesota company whose home was located in Northeast Minneapolis.    In the know garden people were Bachman’s people.   They would wander through the greenhouses, dumpy and disorganized compared to those of today, but far more interesting because of the mystery of their lack of organizion.  One never knew what might be around the corner.

Either did many of the  plants people working there. 

Exploring began around February first of every year as well.  I bought my first Juddii Viburnum at Bachman’s on Lyndale around  May 10, 1965.   I don’t want to think about the amount of money I spent for house plants in those days.  Bachman’s then had by far the best and biggest variety of house plants for sale throught the state and then some.

Growing house plants was a craze at that time.  Far many more varieties were on the market than today.

On the other hand the numbers and varieties of outdoor plants today must be five to ten times greater than 50 or 60 years ago.   Nearly none of the dwarf conifers were even “born” by then.  There were a number of iris and peonies available, a few phlox and achillea, baby’s breath, phlox and  one or two varieties of hosta, neither terribly impressive.  

The evergreen ground cover, pachysandra, couldn’t survive  most Minnesota winters, and no one around here had heard of ajuga .  

Russian Olive, a few varieties of crab apples, most of them large growers, elms, maples, honeylocusts and green ash were available.   Deciduous shrubs included honeysuckles, hedge cotoneaster, alpine currant,  and buckthorn, cistena cherry and golden mock orange. 

Austrian, Scots, and Mugho Pine (species and dwarf) were the pines on the market.  There were no white pines sold to the public.   Arborvitaes included only Pyramidal and Siberian.    In the Spring of 1974 when we  moved to Minnetonka I had to purchase my American arborvitae from Mentor, Ohio, even though it was native to Minnesota.   It arrived in a number 10 envelope with  its roots wrapped in  moist cotton.   It is about 35′ tall now.

Technys started showing up for sale several years later.

Farmers Seed and Nursery was a terrific place to buy seeds and fruit-bearing trees and shrubs.   At one time I had planted a total of 17 plum trees in my Minnetonka garden.  The fruit was delicious, the fragrance of the blossoms intoxicating, the forms of most varieties either beautiful by nature, or  could be made spectacular by inspired pruning.

The best for eating purposes and natural beauty of tree shape was Waneta.   Toka, still on the market today, will beat or match any plum at any time in flavor.   I also grew Superior, Mount Royal, Underwood, the latter probably bearing the best blooms of all of the northern American plums.  I grew others as well, but I cannot remember their hybrid names just now. 

These plums lasted for about 30 years on the average.   By the time they eventually left my grounds ,  the  White pines I had planted, had matured enough to cause a lot of shade, too much for American plums hybrids to flourish underneath their branches.

Pfitzer junipers and  spreader yews were used as foundation shrubs with pyramidal arborvitaes at both sides of the front and at both corners of the front ot the house, whether they were needed or not.

Most landscaping then as now, was done by habit rather than by any artistic intent.

Welcome to garden year, 2011.

The word suburb was not invented in 1950.  It was used in landscaping a century earlier, but meant something different…..It referred to a part of a city’s ‘vacant’ environs which hadn’t yet been platted.  This was true also in 1950.  The population in both centuries was exploding.  Homes had to be built.  It was the American dream that rich and poor, and everything in between would live in  a better society if every American family had its  own “God’s little acre”.

With home ownership would come the responsibility of proper management, the opportunity for artistic individuality, not necessarily of style of house, but of style of grounds.   Trees, almost always elms planted  along the streetside of Midwestern towns and cities would prove the neighborhood was civilized and not a haphazard  farmshack  or forest hovel.  American Christian neighborliness was to be a community experience with home grounds privacy.

Moreover the automobile had not yet arrived.

In 1950 American were moving to a new suburb…..a community away politically and sometimes even geographically far enough away from the central city where people could be FREE of the city…….a city where frontsides had to be nearly always the same…..where walkways were fixed and steps controlled by the city usually to satisfy labor union requirements but passed off as safety features…..where alleys were congested.

In 1950 Americans were having a lot of little Americans.  For 20 years the society was under stress from the Great Depression and then World War II.   Few homes could be built.   Who had the money or felt the security necessary to make moves for ones family?  Homes simply were not being built during those decades.   No one could pay for them.

With the end of the war Americans began to accumulate a few dollars rebuilding the war torn parts of the world.  The population was buying cars and refrigerators again.  I remember when my parents bought our first refrigerator, in about 1947 or 48….a Norge to replace our icebox….about the same time we got our first television set, a Philco eleven inch black and white set…brand new.  My Dad bought his first ‘fancier’ car….one above the mass produced variety….a second hand  DeSoto…. replacing the  second-hand 1941 Plymouth four-door he had bought in early 1942. 

The bulging population was being moved to the first ring suburbs…..St. Louis Park, Roseville, Mounds View, New Brighton, Richfield, Edina,  most of which were still designed according to city platting.  Same steps, same alleys, sames sidewalks, same lot sizes with a few one car attached garages facing the street.   Eventually, occasionally, there appeared a variety of lot size and shape.   Some ponds saved others drained.  Some neighborhoods were designed to fit the grounds and space allotted, others were not.

In some locations homes became bigger on lots which were smaller……’Castles on a postage stamp lot.”

And finally, once beautiful acreages of older estate homes were bought up and divided into city sized lots for more houses on smaller lots…..and then the colllapse of the  housing industry.

What does all of this have to do with Landscaping your home?  

Landscaping the home grounds is at its very best, an art form.   Ones grounds  is more than a canvas upon which to paint  beauty.  It is  three dimensional.   It is to be entered.  In most situations it is an outdoor additional ‘room’ or a number  of rooms to offer variety to family  homelife.

The modern American moves often, not only from house to house, but from city to city and state to state.  Houses are bought and sold much more frequently than generations ago.

Central to the home grounds is the house itself.   Almost invariably, then, central to the art of landscaping the home grounds is the house itself.

When the population was more romantic about owning homes, the house and lot had greater appeal…..even if lots were small.   If one planted a maple in ‘the back yard’, it was likely the homeowner would live long enough living in the same residence to enjoy its  growth and ‘benefits’ for decades.    Despite the mistakes which were constantly made regarding choice of tree, there was pride expressed  when the homeowner could say, “I had that planted”….or “I planted that in 1960″.)

Once the house and garage have been built on the property, the biggest mistakes  the home owner can make on the home grounds has  to do with planting a tree or trees…..Planting the wrong tree and Planting a tree in the wrong place.  

Wrong trees almost always were elms, silver maples, sugar maples, weeping willows, green ash and honey locusts because they would grow far too large for the space provided.  This was especially the case when ranch houses and ramblers were the offered  style of house architecture.  In no time the once modest-sized, britle-wooded silver maple became 50 feet on dangerous branchings of britle wood, hovering high above a structure more pancake in appearance than rambler.

Wrong locations may also include planting fruit-bearing trees where they will  branch over driveways or well-used walkways….or large shade producing evergreens on the south side of  driveways or parking areas where in winter the sun is shaded from melting the ice over the pavement.

Wrong choices may also include fruit trees or nut trees which attract varmints…..undesireables.  Ohio Buckeye, any of the oaks and apples.  And remember that some trees are far weedier than others with the definition of weed confined to mean, “a plant out of place”.

So often trees are so revered they are planted whether the tree is a value to anything or not.  

It is my view that in the majority of home grounds were trees have grown to maturity, most are an artistic detraction to the house which they should be embellishing.

Homeowners usually do not remove trees from their property unless they are uprooted by nature.  It took me five years to build enough determination  to  remove  my  70 foot tall, 60 year-old elm, a survival of the Dutch elm disease epidemic from my front garden November a year ago.

Removing such large trees is an expense as well.   But for most homeowners, removal of trees is simply a no no.

Trees are to be planted in locations where there is good reason to plant them.   Such reason can be romantic…..I happen to value white pines enormously.   I love their smell, sound stature, greenery and touch.   I just love owning them….My favorite tree genus for our Twin City, Minnesota is  Thuja….for it produces the widest selections for evergreen conifer choice.  

I also have to own a white oak. 

I am totally taken by glorious landscape beauty……the beauty of a specimen tree or shrub is striking, eye catching, but beyond all I like walking through a magnificent landscape garden…..the  Earth setting  mankind has always deemed closest to God.

In the ideal, it is the house which is the main structure this beautiful  landscape should be embellishing.

We at Masterpiece are going to have a special day this coming Saturday, September 18th starting at 2:00 PM at our home landscape garden.   And I am going to be on the schedule to share some observations about the most honored art form of them all, the gardened landscape.

We are celebrating Client Appreciation Day at our Minnetonka home landscape garden, 14624 Woodhill Terrace.   Prizes and refreshments will be part of the program.  But the main event will be walking through the grounds and learning about some of the tricks of the trade. 

Landscape gardening is a visual art form.   And the eye is easy to attract, cause feelings and memory, curiosity and pleasure.  The eye is also easy to fool…….to make something appear to be more or less than it is, to cause one to turn right  rather than left, to look in one direction rather than another. 

Gardens, like people, gain character with age.    With this age, I am so pleased to add that our landscape garden was one of the six 2010 winners of the Minneapolis Star and Tribune’s Most Beautiful Garden Contest.   Pictures and details of the grounds will be coming in the Home Garden section of the paper sometime late fall or early winter.  

Friends and clients, Marian and Larry Fischer of Waseca and Sunny Schneiderhan of Minneapolis, also  have been honored by the Star-Tribune for the outstanding beauty of their landscape gardens.  Other home landscapes of clients/friends,  Claude and Laurel Riedel in Minneapolis, and Meg Devine and Ian Grunberg in Mendota Heights have received recognition from other sources.

Bring your questions and your observations for discussion.  And bring your friends and neighbors.

Our company, Masterpiece Landscaping, Ltd., was invited to participate in a Garden Party last Thursday.  It was a fund raiser for the Friends of Roseville Parks held at the lovely grounds of Tom and Mona Dougherty.  Over 300 people attended. 

There were many programs offered to provide entertainment and learnings to the attendees.  I and Mike Berg of our Masterpiece staff were among the speakers.

I wanted to emphasize the importance of beauty as the fundamental goal in the development of the landscape garden.  Beauty and beautiful are words seldom used in the garden world these days.  I happened to notice while at the offices of the Horticultural Society in Roseville a few weeks ago, that of 80 or more topics offered by folks signed up for the Society’s speaker’s list, NOT A ONE MENTIONED THE WORD OR ANY RELATIVE OF THE WORD, ‘BEAUTY’.   Not a one mentioned landscaping as an art form.  

I mentioned in my presentation that beauty is no longer  respected in art,  any art.  It apparently is out of date.   Where is beauty expressed  in any of the more common art forms…music?  theater?  painting?  poetry?  literature?

In landscaping and gardening usually the instrutments of the trade don’t let us down.   The flowers themselves are colorful, trees might be shapely and not dying, shrubs occasionally are seen not hacked back to control their size, and evergreens when healthy are still beautiful, especially in winter.

But beyond the instruments themselves, little attention is paid to achieve beauty  in the home grounds…..and the flowers, shrubs, trees, and all of the evergreens, these instruments of beauty become neglected and begin to deteriorate.   Others  grow beyond the spaces allotted.  

Gardens, like people, gain character with age.    A bit of knowledge can help good character.

By ‘garden’  we usually refer to a space of ground where flowers are grown for display.   We usually don’t think of foundation plantings as gardens, but as a display of plants to cover the foundation of the house whether that foundation needs cover or not.

Most home owners don’t know if their foundations need cover.   Most landscape designers don’t either….foundation plantings are a habit….it’s a given.

Almost all landscaping itself,  as practiced for generations, is a display of lawn, and a display or two of other plant material.   And, in my 60 years of being aware of home landscaping, there can be no doubt that many of  these displays are  more attractive that they used to be.

There are more materiasl from which to choose.  Until recently there has been a bit more money available to spend on decorating the home grounds with various displays of plants.

Little of this has to do with a lancscape garden.   A landscape garden is to be entered.  Yes, it is a piece of land, but that piece of land is to be developed not to display plants as displays, but mimic nature and  idealize  nature as the human eye and mind dictate. 

Privacy, or at least the illusion of privacy, is vital. 

How does a home owner develop such grounds?

The landscape garden requires space, but it can be created in the “front yard” or the back, or both, of almost every 45′ by 100′ of a typical rectangular Twin City home lot.

Would you buy a house in which every room is a kitchen…..or the rooms are all livingrooms?

Why do we landscape our “yards” into two rooms at most…..the front yard and the back yard?

Foundation plantings out front, a  spiraea or three or five, some hostas, a lot of river rock, and a linden tree or a dying Colorado spruce  in the middle of the front ‘yard’.   In grounds where  plantaholics live, every space is filled with plants.  That is what space is for….to fill with plants.  More plants will be bought and placed whereever there might be an opening.

Occasionally, some beauty might break out, but the best one can usually achieve is to be noted as a person who is a plantaholic.

I have coined a phrase which tells all there is to know about the rule of achieving beauty in the art of landscaping……”What do you plant where, and why did you do it?”   Three questions as one…..but the most important question is “Why did you do it?”

However practical it may be to answer the question, “Why did you place that particular plant at that particular location?” with “Because that was the only space available”, you may find comfort in being among the 98%  who will answer the same, but you’ll never get anywhere as a plantaholic except collect plants.

“Because I like it there!” is not a satisfactory answer either, unless  you   explain why.  When you can explain rationally why you like something beautiful, you have taken  the most important step in becoming a successful landscape garden artist. 

Gals, this might be difficult to do, but give it a serious try.

Give us a call at Masterpiece Landscaping  for more information about establishing landscape gardens on your home or business grounds.   We offer garden tours and addresses of beautiful gardens which contain beautiful displays, but in a ‘cathedral’ of a landscape garden.

Dear Friends:  Last Wednesday we at Masterpiece discovered that my home garden had been  chosen one of the six winners in the Star-Tribune’s annual Beautiful Gardens contest.   

In an article appearing  in the paper’s Home and Garden section, Kim Palmer wrote:  “How do your gardens grow?

Extremely well, judging from the overwhelming response to this year’s Home and Garden Beautiful Gardens contest.  We received nearly 200 entries, a record number for the contest it started in 1997.

Frankly, we were blown away, not just  by the sheer volume of gardens submitted, but also the beauty they represented.  We saw award-worthy gardens in every style and on every scale.  In the end, our team of six judges narrowed the field to the following six winners:

Glenn Ray, founder of Masterpiece Landscaping, has influenced many local gardeners, including several previous Beautiful Garden winners.  His own Minnetonka landscape is a “masterpiece of color, texture, form aroma and imagination,”  according to its nominator.”

Ms. Palmer listed:

Richard and Shirley Friberg, Roseville…….Dianne and Dan Latham, Edina…….Randy Ferguson, Minneapolis……Diane and Curtis Dutcher, Brooklyn Park……..and Chris Trevis, Lake Elmo as Beautiful Gardens winners as well.    Each garden was skillfully described.

Congratulations to you all.

I admit that I am quite pleased and thank everyone involved for  this recognition and honor.  I especially thank Chris and Marion Levy, long time clients,  and as with so many of you, good friends who apparently nominated the grounds, and Kim Palmer for the special paragraph she wrote, quoted above, about me and the garden.  

And I thank all of you and my colleagues at Masterpiece who have added to my great good luck in life to work with such good and talented people, creating something  beautiful for people interested in garden beauty to add to their lives, and maintain  friendships  which help make life beautiful and so well worth living.

From the bottom of my heart….Thank you, ALL!

Friends and, we are happy to say, “clients” of Masterpiece Landscaping, Mona and Tom Dougherty,  are opening their gardened grounds for a grand garden bash for all of us who love beautiful gardened landscapes. 

Flower, trees, and shrubs, and even lawn, will receive the special honors for the day.  Much of the talk and many of the talks will be about them …….to know more about the garden arts  and our  tricks of how to put these gifts of the Earth into beautiful settings to enspirit us and our friends and neighbors. 

But, that isn’t all.  Boulders, bees, and butterflies and even backyard chickens will honored with speech and gossip.

Tea and tasty treats will accompany the beauty.  Classes on landscaping design, flower arranging, and other plant “arts”  are open to all.  Music will attend as well.

Advance reservations are $20 (tax deductible).  Send checks (made to Friends of Roseville Parks) to Norma Forbord, 2016 Evergreen Court, Roseville, MN 55113.  Call 651-636-4280 for further information.  Tickets at the door are $25.

Our Masterpiece staff will be there presenting programs and  answering your questions helping all to know more about creating beauty in the Minnesota Home Garden.

For those of you who are especially interested in the Landscape Garden, you will learn more on this guided tour than just the names of plants.  You will discover some interesting features of the Landscape Garden which sets it aside from the Plant Display Gardens  one views everywhere.

When Minnesotans think of gardens, they think of displays  of flowers and occasionally a few shrubs.  Blooms are the mainstays of these  plots.  Often such “gardens” occur in the back yard or these days, as foundation plantings in the front as well.  They are to be viewed only and therefore they become two dimentional. 

Landscape Gardens are to be enterred.  The skill in the design generally is to lure the visitor and control what is to be seen and felt.

As a rule flower gardens are a female habit.  Gals love color and many are very particular about particular colors.   Guys are generally more interested in form with color supporting form.  One of the reasons, surely, is due to the fact so many human males have an assortment of color distinguishing problems.  Some are badly colorblind. 

The tour will begin just west of Hopkins.   There is no charge, but a donation to Courage Center will be appreaciated.   Call  at 612-919-5200 or the Masterpiece Office at 952-933-5777 for reservations and further details.

There are some folks who believe the landscape garden is limited to areas with large grounds.  This is not the case.  At least two of the settings we will be visiting will be typical city lots. 

This is also the time those of you who seek living amid beauty must think about planting for the winter landscape garden.  You’ll certainly want to join us on the tour.