August 17, 2009 – 11:01 am
“Mums” the word! Our first fall shipment of the University of Minnesota Hardy Mums came in this morning. Loaded with blossoms – you’ll find colors in purple, yellows, rust, white, orange and maroon. Mums are heavy feeders – meaning they like to be fertilized almost everytime they’re watered to keep them blossoming as long as possible.
Full sun is preferred, but a little light shade will work as well. The Univeristy of Minnesota Hardy Mums are limited in availability – but when planted in the ground – should come back in the spring to accent your perennial garden again next fall.
We’ll also be getting in some Garden Mums shortly as well, and those are treated like annuals – they won’t survive the winter.
Pictured here is a sample of the many hanging baskets we just received! We have single flower baskets including fuschia, geraniums, calibrichoa and multi-flower baskets for sun and for the shade. These will make great Mother’s Day presents, decorate your door, or remove the hanger bracket, and they can be used as patio pots. With graduation coming up in a few weeks – they’ll be just the ticket to brighten up your home.
We have a great selection of specialty annuals, grasses and 4 & 6 pak bedding plants. Lots of veggies as well!
Our first shipment of spring annuals is scheduled to arrive late this afternoon. We’ll have the cool season annuals available first thing tomorrow morning! There’ll be Alyssum, Dianthus, Dusty Miller, Pansies, Petunias, Snapdragons, Vinca and Violas.
We’ll also have available a few varieties of the annuals that are for warmer temps if you’re starting your own baskets or containers. You’ll need to be able to keep them inside at night if it’s going to get cold.
Then – for those who are anxious for veggies, we have broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, lettuce, a few peppers and a few tomato plants coming in also. We currently have onion sets, seed potatos, asparagus, rhubarb, raspberries, blueberries, and grapes available for your garden planning.
Our whole array of Proven Winners, specialty annuals, hanging baskets, warm season annuals, the large variety of vegetables, herbs, tomatoes and peppers will be continuing to arrive starting the end of the month. We need to keep in mind, that the average frost free date in southern Minnesota isn’t until May 15th!
We are again offering our Bonus Bucks promotion! For every $25 in retail purchases during April and May, you will earn one Bonus Buck. Earn your Bonus Bucks when you buy mulch, your hanging baskets, annuals, shrubs, trees, and perennials. When you’re ready to plant your veggie garden – think Bonus Bucks! In June, Bonus Bucks can be redeemed. Treat yourself to a new plant or two!
Please check out our specials page . We have several trees, shrubs and perennials on sale for the first two weeks of April!
Also on sale while supplies last, are our balled and burlapped trees that were dug in 2008. These are larger trees and are available at an incredible price! There are many shade trees, ornamental trees and evergreens available. These won’t last long!
We are proud to announce that we are a 2009 Proven Winners Certified Garden Center. Through the iGarden program from Proven Winners, owners and employees are provided with plant selling tips, customer service tools and merchandising techniques to help them better serve consumers in helping them select and grow the right Proven Winners plant varieties for their individual gardening needs. Each of our retail salespeople took a test based on this material, and once we all successfully passed this test, we became certified.
Being a certified garden center enables us to better serve the customers regarding their plant choices and questions. If there are certain Proven Winner plants that you are specifically looking for – please contact us. We can’t carry every plant, but we would do our best to obtain requested plants.
Our plant spotlight today is a new perennial Lupine. Lupines are colorful favorites in the spring and summer garden. They can be used as accent plants with shrubs, or used in the back of a perennial garden. They are a wonderful complement with irises, peonies, bellflowers and annuals. Attracting butterflies and hummingbirds to their colorful stalks is a delight for many gardeners, and Lupine can be brought inside to use as a cut flower.
‘The Chatelaine’ Russell Hybrids Lupine is a new plant we are carrying this year from Walters Gardens. Producing beautiful bicolor pink and white flower spikes above the attractive foliage, it will grow to 30″ to 36″ tall and does best in full sun to partial shade. This early summer bloomer prefers rich, acidic soil. A zone 3 plant, it prefers the cool summers of the north and when going farther south doesn’t fare as well. It will be especially breathtaking when several clumps are planted together.
February 21, 2009 – 10:20 am
We are excited to have our new “Plant Search” tool up and running on our website. After hours of work this winter, we have most of our trees and shrubs on this search tool and about half of our perennials. We are continuing to add more plants as time allows and we hope that it will be beneficial in helping you find the plants that you need. Just click on the “Try Our Plant Search” on the top of the leftside column of our website and it takes you right there! You’ll be able to print off information sheets of the various trees, shrubs or perennials, you can create a shopping list or simply just learn about the different plants. It lets you describe your site – clay soils, sandy soils, shady, or sunny and you can pick colors, shapes, textures, etc. and it will zero in on plants that will work for you!
We also have all of the plants that we will be carrying in 2009 listed on the “Plant Page” by name. If there’s a certain plant that you want, and it’s not listed – please let us know. We can certainly try to special order it in for you! Sometimes it’s just a phone call or e-mail away from finding it!
February 21, 2009 – 10:05 am
This year, more than ever, I believe we will see more people going back to or start to vegetable garden. A well planned out vegetable garden will yield good results, prove economical and will definitely deliver a sense of pride in your accomplishments!
We have our vegetable garden here at the nursery (since we’re here most of the time!). We worked the soil and added some of our soil mix and compost. As with any planting project – be it trees, shrubs, flowers or vegetables, the soil is everything. Once that was done, we laid out a layer of ground cover landscape fabric, slit the rows in it and were ready to plant. This is such a time saver since the weeding is minimal – just around the plants themselves. No rows to weed. Another huge benefit – the vegetables stay much cleaner!
We have expanded our vegetable and fruit offerings this year. You can start your vegetable garden planning with the following:
- Red, White and Gold seed potatoes
- Red, White and Yellow onion sets
- Garlic bulbs
- Asparagus
- A wide variety of herbs
- Strawberry plants
- Many varieties of tomato plants
- Many varieties of pepper plants
You’ll be ahead of the game with our starter plants for many of the other vegetables – cucumbers, beans, squash, pumpkins, etc. These are available in little peat containers all ready to plant.
Watch for more ideas and thoughts on vegetable gardening coming this spring! If you have questions on getting a vegetable garden started or any other questions – please use the contact us link at the bottom of the page and we’ll get you the answer!
February 21, 2009 – 9:45 am
Bluto, the garden toad is ready for spring. He’s anxious for warmer weather! December and January were cold and snowy. February provided a reprieve with warmer temperatures, not alot of snow (until last night) and warmer temperatures. The snow melted in the open areas and people were beginning to optimistically look to spring!
There are many ways to get a jump start on spring! Start planning your annual flower beds, containers and hanging baskets. I read an article from one of our wholesalers that the colors that are going to be popular this year with annual plantings will be yellow with blue and purple accents. Yellow is the color of hope! Perhaps if we all plant yellow flowers things all around the world will turn around and head in the right direction! Make your lists of the colors, the numbers, plants that you like and so on. Hang onto the list and when the weather warms up – you’ll be ready.
Our lead designer, Kristin Lucas is offering a special for landscape design. The details are on our “Specials Page”. A facelift to your current landscape may be in order and even if it’s a smaller area, having a design to work from is the right way to start. Consulting with a designer this time of year will give you a more leisurely pace to start your conversations and by the time the ground thaws – you’ll know what you want to do and you can dig right in!
Don’t dispair Bluto – the snow will melt soon and you’ll once again be sitting in the garden among the many annuals and perennials!
January 21, 2009 – 5:05 pm
On Monday, we took a few hours to head to St. Paul to the Como Park Conservatory. It was the last day of their featured Rainforest Display and the winter Poinsettia display in the Sunken Garden. The flowers were still perfect – and this was the last day of the exhibit!
The next transition in the Sunken Garden is the Winter Flower Show which starts on January 30th. There is an orchid display this weekend in conjunction with the St. Paul Winter Carnival also at the Conservatory.
The “weather” in the Conservatory definitely sets Spring Fever in full gear. Even though the holiday flowers still abounded -the displays had Coleus and Begonias mixed in – which being annuals, made us think of spring.
The begonias in the photo here are just some of the many that we’ll have available in the spring. With the cold weather, spring gardens seem a long ways off – but spring will be here before we know it. Start thinking now about what you want for colors in your annuals this upcoming season – what perennials you want to move around – some new places for new plants… start dreaming!
After what seemed to be a late start, my cucumbers are going crazy! Just when I think I have them all picked, there is another one hiding between the vines. We eat them fresh, top off salads, make a cream sauce as a side dish, Greek Salad, Garbanzo Bean Salad, make pickles, and more!
Today we held our first annual “Kid’s Planting Day”. The kids came and planted annual planters to give to mom for Mother’s Day. They potted their chosen plants with the help of Heidi and Kristin from our staff, and the dads got right in there to help as well. We labeled the planters and will keep a close watch on them here at the nursery until Mother’s Day weekend. Before the kids come back in and pick them up – we’ll add a bow and a special Mother’s Day plant pick and they’ll be able to take them and surprise mom! After all the planting fun was done, the kids enjoyed cookies and a drink box. 
Bring your children ages 3 and up to the nursery on Saturday morning, April 25th, starting at 10:30 to pot up their very own flower pot for Mom, for Mother’s Day! We will care for their pot of flowers here in the greenhouses until Mother’s Day weekend when they can come in and pick it up! Planting with the kids will take about ½ an hour or so. 
