Knecht’s

We spent a week on the Georgia coast last month! The temps were in the 60’s and 70’s and spring was just starting to emerge. Except for the Azaleas - they were beautiful. The picture here is from an Azalea shrub in Forsyth Park in Savannah.

Even though we don’t have the wide number of varieties of Azaleas available here in Minnesota that they have in Georgia - there still are several varieties that are Zone 4 hardy. Yellows, pink, oranges… we’ll have our Azaleas in at the nursery the last part of April!

Savannah is an absolutely beautiful city. In the historic district, there are 24 small parks laid out on a grid system so that you only need to walk 2 or 3 blocks in any direction and you come upon a small city square park. Then - there is Forsyth Park. Centered around a huge white fountain, the sidewalks form the spokes of a wheel and lead you in and out of the park along pathways of flowers and trees!

The Redbud trees were just starting to blossom. This is always an exciting time in Minnesota at the beginning of Spring as it beckons the other flowering trees to follow.

There is a strain of Redbud that grows well in Minnesota. It needs well drained loamy soil with a little protection and it’ll thrive for years! We have a clump at home that is doing really well and we have a more mature clump here at the nursery! A small ornamental tree that will complete an area in your yard.

For those of you who are thinking about re-doing an area at your home or those with new homes that need landscaping - now is the time for thinking about that Landscape Design Plan. The designers can meet with you now, discuss things that you like and don’t like, and start working on that plan. You can have the final draft in a few weeks and then you’ll be ready to actually start as soon as spring arrives!

Get a head start. Kristin Lucas - one of our designers is currently offering $50 off a Design Plan of 8 hours or more. Contact us for more details!

Now that the holidays are over and even though it is still the first part of January - we are in full gear for the upcoming season. The winter work consists of hiring new employees, doing the year-end books for 2007 and tax forms, advertising programs for this year, creating price lists, getting pricing from vendors from plants to landscaping supplies, and the list goes on. The next six weeks we’ll be busy with office work and then we turn the greenhouses on and plants start to arrive.

This week - we all head up to the Minneapolis Convention Center for the annual Minnesota Green Expo. Three days of seminars, networking with others in the industry, sharing ideas, and visiting the vendors in the Trade Show. The landscape division will attend seminars that share ideas and pointers on all sorts of landscape installations, the landscape designers get ideas from others and on different plants that are popular, the retail division gets promotion ideas, ideas on what works good and what doesn’t, and the production side of things is always educational as we see new equipment, new planting methods - ideas that work, and so on.

There are eight from Knecht’s heading up for this wonderful learning opportunity sponsored by the Minnesota Nursery and Landscape Association. Spring fever has definitely set in.

This is the time of year when we sit around the table - look out at a snow covered yard, probably on a cloudy day and get depressed! If the sun would shine - it wouldn’t be so bad… If it were closer to April and the snow would start to melt - hey that would be great!

But — we can only sit and dream a little and resolve to do better for our garden this year!

New Year’s Resolutions shouldn’t always be centered around losing weight and exercising. How about ways to make the gardens look better come spring and summer!

Heidi (our retail manager) and I came up with a few resolutions for the garden. The list could go on and on … Come up with your own!

1) I will remove any buckthorn that I find. It’s alot of work - but so much better for the yard.
2) That over-grown shrub in front of the house — as much as I like it - it is now time for it to go and I’ll replace it with a new variety.
3) Even though my neighbor will give me more of the hosta she divides - I want to try a new and different variety. Perhaps one with larger leaves, maybe a variegated one makes your head turn when you walk by it…
4) The winters are warmer now - I resolve to try one new perennial that is marginally zone 4 hardy. I want to live dangerously. Zone 5 - here I come.
5) Petunias, and marigolds. They’re so reliable. I’ll keep on planting them - but a few less. I want to try a new annual variety.. Perhaps a different color than most.
6) I’m going to finally get the name markers by my perennial plants. I’ll find the stakes this winter, and the marking pen and come spring - I’ll get them labelled.
7) I’ll faithfully fertilize, amend the soil in the beds that need a little help and mulch where I can. And finally - I will get those tulip and daffodil bulbs planted this fall so NEXT spring - I’ll have that early spring color.

Gift Certificates are the perfect holiday gift. We can do a gift certificate for any amount or for a specific plant if you’d like. A gift certificate will enable the recipient to pick out just the right plant that they want!

We also do gift certificates for trees as a living memorial. What a wonderful way to remember a loved one!

We can mail out gift certificates for your convenience or you can pick them up here at the nursery office. Please either contact us via e-mail or give us a call at 800-924-5015.

We are now officially ready for winter here at the nursery. We have grouped and covered all of our plant material. It’s a process that takes a couple of weeks from start to finish and it is nice to be able to say all of the plants are tucked in.

We have approximately 200 #15 containerized trees still available (these are over-wintered a different way) and about 300 B&B (balled and burlapped) trees available. We have B&B evergreens, and shade trees and ornamental trees in both B&B and container available. It is best to call ahead about trees so that we are here when you come. Our staff at this time of the year and still cleaning up the nursery or are out with the landscape crews getting the last of the jobs completed. The trees will be available until the ground has frozen. The fall sale price of 30% to 60% off still applies!

Our landscape designers continue to work year ’round so this is actually a wonderful time to consult one of the gals and work on a landscape plan for your yard and you’ll be ready to go in the spring. Give us a call and we can put you in contact with either Amy or Kristin. Kristin Lucas just completed a site visit last Friday with Mary Schier - the editor of the Northern Gardener magazine of the Minnesota Horiticulture Society. We have assisted Mary over the years with several projects at her home here in Northfield and Kristin helped her with ideas for a new perennial bed. Mary does a web-blog called My Northern Garden and it shares her experiences.

Leif’s article in this past week’s Northfield News discusses preparing your plants and gardens for winter. It is especially important to make sure your evergreens are well watered going into winter. Read on….

“Preparing plants in your landscape for the stresses of winter is likely to yield nice dividends during next year’s growing season. Usually there are some very pleasant days in mid to late November for happily puttering in the garden, so be ready to take advantage of these as soon as the blustery days ease into crisp, clear conditions with lower winds.

This year established landscape plants should not need any late season watering, since we have excellent soil moisture due to the very wet period that followed last summer’s drought. New plantings placed in the landscape any time during 2007 are an exception. Give this year’s new plants a couple good watering during November, especially if they were installed during the last half of the growing season.

If at all possible, mulch newer plantings. Shredded bark or wood chips provided good insulation from the winter cold for the root system.

We’ve had some hard frosts, so it should be safe to prune Oaks and Elms now, as well as the other varieties of trees.

If you enjoy cutting firewood this time of year do your best to be safe. Wear protective helmets and face guards, keep saws sharp, work along with another person and avoid felling trees during very windy conditions. Dropping trees is by nature risky, and heavy winds definitely increase the danger. Dead trees with rotted or broken limbs can be especially dangerous. As the tree begin to fall, branches may come off unexpectedly, and fall on the person doing the cutting. There’s a reason that these old dead trees have been nicknamed “widow makers”.

As you clean up fallen leaves and spent foliage around your yard, so some assessment of what plants worked well for you and which were disappointing. Next – make written notes and save the notes for reference next March and April as you make plans and dream of garden glories of the future.

Plants that worked well for you might not do well at your friend’s house due to differing conditions, and vice versa. Rely on what your own experience has taught you work well in your gardens, and be a bit wary of all the glossy photos in catalogues and magazines. Give yourself permission to experiment with some new varieties each year, with the understanding that some will be wonderful and others disappointing. You won’t know until you try!

As Thanksgiving nears and harvest on area farms winds down, I’m grateful to have had another season to watch the landscape come to life in the spring, bear fruit in summer, and wind down in the fall. Now comes the time when the landscape sleeps through our dormant season, offering a natural time for reflection and preparation. Thank you for sharing the journey.

Plant Spotlight: Interesting hues and textures for holiday decorating can be found by using Red-twigged Dogwood, dried ornamental grasses, and Bittersweet vines. What a great way to decorate your flower urns, window boxes and planters after the summer annuals and fall mums are done! Red and yellow twig dogwood shrubs are wonderfully versatile. Prune them and use “

The Korean Sun Pear is a delightful ornamental tree that performs all season and then as a finale - gives us a color palette that would make any maple jealous. (click on picture to enlarge)

For urban landscapes where yards are smaller, this is the perfect choice for a smaller stature tree. It has a mature height of 15 feet and the same for width. A small, rounded head with glossy green foliage turns a red to red/orange/yellow in the fall. It has white flowers that bloom in late spring followed by sparse, if any fruit.

We have had customers buy several to line a driveway - or patio area or just simply as a specimen plant. These are included in the fall sale of trees here at the nursery.

Despite the gloomy October weather we’ve been experiencing this past several weeks, we have maples and oaks turning gorgeous colors now here at the nursery. These pictures were taken this morning when the sun was shining, and feature the Autumn Blaze Maple which turns a brilliant red and is sure to enhance any landscape!

The following is an article submitted by our retail manager - Heidi Gervais.

It’s time to plant your spring blooming bulbs! September and October are the best months to get your tulips, daffodils, crocus, allium and hyacinth bulbs in the ground! It allows enough time for the bulbs to get a few roots established before the long witner ahead.

If you want that first sign of spring in your landscape, then stop in to get your bulbs now. They’re going fast.

Add some fall color with some hardy perennial asters. Purple Dome is an absolute must have in any perennial or shrub border. The flowers are a rich deep purple that bloom from late September until frost.

The picture here shows the Purple Dome Aster in the background with the fall color of the Autumn Joy Sedum.

Once they start to blooming in our display beds we have a hard time keeping them in stock. By the way - perennials right now are buy two get one free of equal or lesser value. That includes the amazing hardy asters!

We send these guidelines out with all of our customers starting in September - it helps assure successful planting!

Fall Planting Guidelines

In addition to following the steps in our Planting Guide, fall planting requires a few extra steps to ensure good results with your new plants!

1. Keep Watering.
The plants still need to be watered until the ground freezes. With shorter and cooler days, you may not have to water as often but your new plants still need to be watered consistently. A good source of water to carry the plants through the winter is a must!

2. As always, good soil is the key to planting success. If you have good soil in which to plant, that’s great. If your soil is of lesser quality, you should seriously consider amending with at least 1/3 of a good landscape soil mix. Good soil is everything.

3. The plants need to be mulched! The ground surface surrounding the plants needs to be covered and protected over the winter to prevent damage to the plants with hard, deep frosts, or alternate freezing and thawing. Bark mulch helps prevent damage to roots by providing some insultation..

a. The type of mulch used ideally would be shredded bark mulch vs. rock mulch. The bark mulch provides much more of an insulation value. Mulch should be applied at a rate of approximately 2″ to 3″ deep. Rock mulch tends to conduct cold instead of providing insulation.
b. Perennials are best mulched after there is 1 to 2″ of frost in the ground. If you do not think you can mulch thoroughly after the ground begins to freeze – it is better to mulch ahead of freezing weather than to go without any mulch!

4. Stake newly planted trees for one full growing season to help them root in firmly and straight. BE SURE to remove ropes, stakes, & ties after one year so you do not damage the bark of the trees, or reposition the ties to slightly different spots on the tree.

5. Fertilizing. After August 1st, fertilize very modestly or not at all.. When you fertilize a plant, you are encouraging it to continue to grow rather than to start its fall to winter dormancy period. If a plant is continuing to grow and push out new growth for too long into the fall, and you have a hard frost, you may encounter “tip die back” or “freezing green” of the plant. This may result in having to trim back the plant next growing season. Be ready to begin a fertilization program in the spring!

Perennials. Follow above for watering, mulching & fertilizing, additionally do not cut back the foliage on the perennials until it has turned brown and died back. Cut back ornamental grasses in the spring.

Make sure you thoroughly root prune all potted plants prior to planting. (Follow our
instruction sheet). Root pruning liberates the roots for proper future growth. Very Important.
Fall Landscape & Garden Check-up List

We have had some wet weather recently - but this weekend the temps are expected to get close to 80 degrees! The second weekend in October! At home - we were missed by the frost from mid-September and our annuals are still looking great - however, we will be into winter before we know it. We will then experience about 6 months of a flowerless landscape.

Add color and texture to your winter landscape with ornamental grasses, dogwoods with bright colored twigs in the wintertime, evergreen trees, flowering crabs with persistent fruit, shrubs with berries - (winterberry, cranberries & viburnums) hydrangea with their dried flower stalks, the potential list is endless.

In our meadow at home we have a planting of Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass which is about one of the best ornamental grasses you will find. It handles the weight of the heavy frost and snow and “pops” right back up. It is set right in front a large planting of dogwoods. We have the red-twigged dogwood, Arctic Fire dogwood, Garden Glow Dogwood, and Red Osier Dogwood all planted in this area. The various colors of red and orange of the stems of the dogwood is awesome in the winter - especially later in the day when the sun is lower and shines through the branches.

These plants combined with evergreens, crabapples and the oaks which hang onto their leaves most of the winter really add a special look to what would be a dull winter scene.

The fall sale is still going on so think about winter interest and plan a special area to add some plants to yet this fall!

We just returned yesterday from our annual late September Boundary Waters trip. In late September, we stay in a cabin instead of camping out. On Friday - Leif went with Rob Nelson from Ely Fishing Guide Company and had incredible luck with large walleyes. He caught his limit of walleye - all over 4 pounds! The lake they were fishing on had a slot limit so they all went back to give another fisherman a thrill.

The weather on Friday couldn’t have been better - hardly any wind - temperatures in the low 60’s and after an early morning fog/haze - the sun came out to brilliantly show the fall colors.

We hiked, fished, canoed and took in all of the beautiful fall colors. What a great way to extend the fall by seeing the fall colors earlier in northern Minnesota and coming home when they start to turn here!

The Northfield News does a fall Home and Garden Supplement each year. Leif wrote an article for the supplement discussing fall planting.

“For many of us living in the Upper Midwest, the idea that “Fall is For Planting” is firmly established in our minds. This season of blazing colors is indeed an excellent time to plant many varieties of landscape plants.

Cool fall and spring temperatures together with gradually slowing rates of plant growth and water usage make for lower maintenance demands on the gardener. Less frequent watering is needed from mid-September to mid-November and again in April and the first half of May. However plants placed in the landscape this fall, will need just as a consistent a water program from next May 15th through the balance of the Summer of ‘08 as shrubs, trees and perennials planted next spring.

Once plants are fully leafed out next spring they are in high gear. The spring growth flush takes an enormous amount of the plants stored energy, and sufficient but not excessive water availability will be a key to good and rapid establishment next season.

During the first year a plant is in its new place in the garden, the most important thing that takes place is the growth of new roots into the surrounding soil. Fall planting can allow some minimal root growth to occur before the onset of dormancy. However this root growth is far less than the root growth plants can accomplish in the first month or two of next year’s growing season. One of the biggest advantages of fall planting is that the plant in question is ready and waiting to take advantage of every single day of the phenomenal spring growth flush. No one has to remember to go out and plant in the spring. The plant is already in place, just waiting for its internal mechanism to be set loose for spring growth.

We are all probably familiar with the incredibly fast and prolific growth of plants in the spring. My Old Fashioned Bleeding Heart seems to leap out of the ground overnight. An important thing to remember is that almost as much growth activity can be occurring underground, especially with new landscape plantings. Nice loose soil should be present around a new plant, allowing roots to quickly extend through soil that is free of compaction.

Perhaps the most significant reason the growth of new roots is so vigorous in early spring is the internal signals sent by swelling buds to the tips of the roots. As buds swell in response to increased sap flow, these swelling buds send a hormonal (chemical) signal to the root tips to begin elongation. This lengthening of the tips of roots can take place at an incredibly rapid rate, especially when the plant that was planted in the fall is ready and waiting to begin the explosion of spring growth both above and below ground, and not a day is lost.

As gardeners happily follow the saying that “Fall is for Planting”, a few things can really help the plants be ready to take full advantage of the spring growth flush. Provide fertile soil, good drainage and consistent but not excessive watering. Mulch with 2″ to 3″ of bark mulch or wood chips over an area wider than the root ball, and fertilize moderately once a month in April, May, June and July the following year.

Also prior to planting be sure to aggressively root prune any container grown plants that have matted roots when removed from the nursery pot. This will help relieve the root bound condition common to plants marketed in plastic nursery pots, and allow the best opportunity for rapid growth of new roots into the surrounding soil.

Yes, “Fall is for Planting”, and good bargains are commonly available at nurseries this time of year. Enjoy the cool and pleasant planting conditions as you fall plant and prepare your new landscape plants for the fullest benefit from next spring’s growth flush. “