I had a mature elm removed from the front grounds of my landscape garden last Thanksgiving weekend. I suspect it was over 65 years old and of about the same height. If someone wants to purchase the trunk I have it stored away in a quonset hut. I am not certain what I am going to do with it. The tree did not have Dutch Elm disease, but it was afflicted with a minor disorder.....a...
Read More >>Trees are by far the most revered species of the floral world. We believe we've lived in them. We've eaten their fruit, their syrup, sapped them for their rubber, used them for shelter, for weapons, for comfort and for fire. Countless trees are beautiful with some species considerably more beautiful than others. Many, many trees are among the landscape gardeners' worst weeds.....defined as plants seeded out of place. No matter how ugly, how scrawny or sick,...
Read More >>We at Masterpiece are very proud of our friends in Waseca, Marian and Larry Fischer, Star Tribune Beautiful Garden winners a year ago. Their landscape garden dwarfs mine in size, spreading about 3 acres in all. It is exquisitely maintained and manicured. The setting is truly an oasis in a beautiful endless "sea" of corn. We have been very blessed to have had the opportunity to work together with Marian and Larry to develop the grounds over...
Read More >>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...
Read More >>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...
Read More >>Not all plants found in our northland gardens are equal. Some have significantly more value than others. One cannot rank them according to value. So many have certain features that despite their lack of beauty, or ugly habits, are simply needed in the landscape garden for perform a special function. Shade elms used as street trees became beautifully formed tunnels for city traffic lining the boulevard spaces in our Minnesota communities. However, the trees have little value in...
Read More >>No, not the stuff the foolish smoke! The stuff that grows where folks don't want the stuff to grow. To the Landscape Garden artist there is only one definition for the word, "weed"..... A Weed is a Plant Out of Place! That is the definition, the whole definition, and nothing but the definition......to the Landscape Gardener. In my landscape garden the plants out of place most everywhere are tree seedlings....sugar maples, red maples, elm, Ohio buckeye,...
Read More >>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...
Read More >>We at Masterpiece Landscaping install grounds irrigation for the landscape garden. Nearly all of the folks trained to install irrigation systems know nothing about installing such systems in the classical landscape garden. What is the difference? Imagine a half acre of lawn. Only lawn....nothing but lawn; no maple trees here, arborvitaes and pine there, viburnum and magnolia, anemone and heuchera, sedum and "Hot Lips" turtlehead in sight. Only lawn, with or without dandelions. Here installantion...
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