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11 Mar 2015
March 11, 2015 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin About Masterpiece, garden seasons, shrubs and trees, The Art of Landscaping, winter landscapes

March: Our Ugliest Month of the Landscape Garden Year

Most homeowners in our Minnesota communities ignore landscape gardens. Lawn and a shade tree in the middle of the front lawn, mud in the shadier depths, and the foundation plantings habits fits their needs for the duration. Probably most homeowners are poorer now than they have been for more than a decade. They endure living in their sterile environment. More females mow lawns these days than ever. The American husband population from coast to coast...

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24 Feb 2015
February 24, 2015 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin About Masterpiece, The Art of Landscaping

Beauty and the Landscape Garden

The gardened grounds around my house over which I have domain are about a half acre in size. However, the setting is enlarged by a near acre-sized pond adjacent to half of the back area of my property, a part under which I also "own", and an extensive hill rising from the rest of the back border covered with nature's collection of this and that woody deciduous growth, both the visually exceptional and its substory...

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07 Jan 2015
January 7, 2015 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin About Masterpiece, battling the Minnesota climate, boulders and stone, perennials, Pruning, shrubs and trees, The Art of Landscaping, winter landscapes

The Cold and Empty Minnesota Winter Landscape

The Landscape Garden of classic western and oriental culture is supposed to be an art form. "One is closest to God in the Garden"......Paradise of nearly all known human cultures has been described, imagined as a "Garden". Yet, at today's universities, in those which bother to include something oriented to landscaping of any kind, preach and enforce politics. Botany has become an unknown science to university undergraduate and graduate students except for perhaps at institutions...

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12 Nov 2014
November 12, 2014 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin battling the Minnesota climate, shrubs and trees

It has been reported that within 48 hours, the Temperature here Will Reach -3 degrees Fahrenheit

Imagine such a temperature forecast in these days of 'POLITICAL GLOBAL WARMING!" Anything for a vote! Fortunately, in the part of the Twin City metropolitan area where I live, about three inches of snow fell a few nights ago. Fortunately too, the half-acre of landscaped garden I manage has already been covered 'naturally' by four inches of fallen leaves blown in mostly from neighbors' mature oak, maple, and cottonwood trees. Quiz question: Which of these...

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09 Oct 2014
October 9, 2014 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin battling the Minnesota climate, Bulbs, garden maintenance, garden seasons

Frost Arrived at my Grounds This Morning, October 9, 2014

I was about to write an article at this post today that tomorrow, October 10th according to records, is the average date for the arrival of frost in these Twin City, America environs. However, when I stepped out onto my gardened grounds, I spied frost covering the here and there. This frost had not been predicted by the pundits. In the upper regions of my bit over a half acre gardened grounds, frost arrived for...

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02 Oct 2014
October 2, 2014 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin About Masterpiece, battling the Minnesota climate, garden maintenance, Plant health

A Review of our Landscape Garden Year, 2014

I have been very delinquent regarding my recordings of landscape garden arts at this Masterpiece Landscaping blog site. That I admit and regret. However, Nature has had something to do about that on two fronts this season: First, I reached my 80th year of life this past Summer.....Second, the pond along which more than two hundred feet of my gardened property abuts, flooded beyond anything previously recorded from the countless torrential rains of this past...

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07 Aug 2014
August 7, 2014 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin garden maintenance, perennials, The Art of Landscaping

What is a ‘garden’ weed?……

What is a weed? To the druggie victim "weed" is something that knocks one out of reality in order to act stupid. This is a landscape garden art website. Hemp is weedy, but lots of plants are weedy but in no way a weed. So, what is a weed? Lawn grasses are weedy. We want them to be weedy when growing in their place for the weedier they are, the thicker mat they will be....

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02 Jul 2014
July 2, 2014 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin battling the Minnesota climate, garden seasons

We are supposed to be ‘Globally Warming’?

This past winter, with the exception of the absence of a January thaw, was a typical winter of the first 25 years of my life. I am two months from being 80. Heavy snowfall in November. More in December. Melting snow and ice was always a feature on Easter Sunday in April before another snowfall would show up a week or so later. One of my college degrees was in Geography. Climate was a required...

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19 May 2014
May 19, 2014 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin battling the Minnesota climate, garden seasons, shrubs and trees

Damage from the Winter’s Mood

This past Twin City area winter was a winter of my childhood through teen age years. Cold and long. Normally a true "test winter', that is a killer winter in at its worst in our area occurs similar to this past cold and windy winter.....but without snow cover. We had snow cover this past season and it came before the bitter cold and winds. That which was covered was protected and therefore survived quite well....

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20 Apr 2014
April 20, 2014 0 Comments By masterpiecelandscapingadmin battling the Minnesota climate, garden maintenance, Plant health, Pruning, The Art of Landscaping

It Was a Rough Minnesota Winter, Folks

It snowed here last Thursday evening. We had only 8" here in my territory, two-thirds of an acre just west of Hopkins, Minnesota. By sunset yesterday, if the sun had been seen while setting in the rain, there was still some unmelted snow in the woodsier part of my grounds. Looking down from my office window as I write this note, I still see a portion of last December's snowdfall on the north side of...

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