Knecht’s

For the October 18th Northfield News, Leif’s article addressed the Sugar Maple.  This year has been about the best in recent memory for the myriad of colors that the sugar maples showed.  This picture here was taken on the St. Olaf College campus - right across from the nursery.

Here is his article….

In these turbulent economic times adding solid proven winners to your financial assets is said to be a wise strategy.  For many of us, our house is one of our biggest assets, and lately, values have been declining.  One way to preserve and increase the value of your property is to choose landscape plants that are high quality and have a proven track record.

The fall of 2008 has shown once again that when it comes to trees in the landscape, there are very sound reasons why sugar maples have frequently been called the King of the Shade Trees.  Also known as hard maple with the botanical name of ‘acer sacharrum’, sugar maples dominated the autumn explosion of leaf color this year with their wonderful mixture of yellow, orange and red color.

Sugar Maples have visually rich layering of color combinations that adds depth, complexity and a heightened sense of color intensity.  While the top part of the tree gradually changes from green to yellow to orange and red, the lower and inner parts of the canopy change later, creating a foundation gold and green that is a perfect counterpoint for the most intensely colored parts of the crown. (more…)

The maple tree with all it’s many varieties continues to be the most popular tree planted.  The question that we are asked the most is “What kind of fall color does this one have”.  We are showing a few of the popular varieties with the 2008 fall color display here.  We have these trees in stock and have several different sizes and price ranges in most varieties. 

Starting today - October 8, 2008 through October 12th we are putting our balled and burlapped (B&B) Autumn Blaze Maple on sale at Buy One Get One Free!  - that’s a heck of a savings!  Buy one at the regular price and the second tree is free!   (If you only want one Autumn Blaze - the trees are currently 30% off regular price - which is still a great savings!)

Autumn Blaze Maple - the most popular tree on the landscape market.   A hybrid - it’s fast growing - sensational fall color - and can grow in most soil conditions.   Print off the copy of this blog post and bring it with you when you pick out your new trees and receive the discount.   This sale ends on October 12, 2008 and applies only to the cost of the tree.  If you would hire our crew to plant them for you - you will need to pay the cost of the planting for the free tree.

There’s no limit on the number of free trees that you can get!  (except while supplies last!).   If you buy 5 Autumn Blaze Maple  B&B  at the regular price - you’ll receive 5 free!

Offer does not apply to any trees in black nursery containers - only to the balled and burlapped trees.  Free tree would be of equal or lesser value.

Now is the time to take advantage of all of our fall sale prices!  Leif is pictured here standing in front of some of our Autumn Blaze Maples.  What fantastic fall color!!!

These trees are now 30% off the regular prices so you can realize exceptional savings on an exceptional tree!  As with any of our plants - you can plant these yourself or hire our crews to do the planting for you!   If we plant the trees for you - all the is left for you to do is the watering!

Now is the time to stop in at the nursery and check out the fall colors.  Even if planting isn’t on your “to do list” this fall - you will still be able to see the fall colors which are so important to so many for our Minnesota landscapes.

Some of the other trees that are showing great color include the Celebration Maple, Sienna Glen Maple, and Firefall to name just a few.   Stop in soon and check these out!

 Leif’s article for the October 4, 2008, Northfield News was on Bittersweet!  Read on….

One of the native plants that can make a striking statement in the fall landscape is the bittersweet vine.  With brilliant orange clusters of fruit hanging on winding vines and curling tendrils, bittersweet brings its vivid display of color to the landscape just as other plants are fading.

 Out in the countryside around Northfield, wild Bittersweet vine can be found here and there growing on fence lines, along railroad rights of way and climbing up trees of many sizes to reach for sunlight.  While Bittersweet is sometimes found in heavier woodlands, it seems to prefer edges, openings, and areas disturbed by some kind of activity, where it can access more sunlight.

 Once the firm orange fruits - 3/8″ to 1`/2″ in diameter open to reveal a very deep orange flesh, they usually persist on the vines throughout the winter, or until they are eaten by birds and other wildlife.  This habit of persisting on the vine and retaining excellent color for many months makes Bittersweet berries one of the most visually stimulating native plants (more…)

We are often asked what a good tree would be for a site - usually the customer would like a fast growing tree - beautiful fall color - they don’t have the best of soil conditions, etc.   Almost without hesitation we can recommend the Autumn Blaze Maple.

The Autumn Blaze Maple is the most popular shade tree on the landscape market.  We sell more Autumn Blaze than any other variety.  It is a hybrid maple, Acer x freemanii “Jeffersred” by it’s formal name.  It will grow to be a full sized maple tree - 50′ to 60′ in height and can get as wide as 30′ to 40′!  It will adapt to almost all kinds of soil conditions and since it is a hybrid - has a vigorous growth rate.

As you can see in the picture here - the fall color is truly awesome!  We planted this tree as a small 15 gal container tree - about 6′-7′ tall and in less than ten years - it has grown to be a wonderful shade tree in this customer’s yard.

With the values that you will find during our fall sale - now is definitely the time to come and pick out an Autumn Blaze!  You can pick one up and take it home and plant it - or you can hire our crews to plant it for you.  Just as our sales staff for all the details!

Leif’s article in last week’s Northfield News addressed the many different plants that put on a color show in the fall.  Read on….

“In a difficult real estate market it can be an advantage to be able to show prospective buyers that the house you have for sale has some appealing features that set it apart.  Top quality landscape plants that also show outstanding autumn color can be just the thing to trip the trigger and bring you a purchase offer.

If you have plants that paint the landscape in eye popping colors be sure you take plenty of good digital pictures this fall, and assemble them into an on-line slide show.  Your agent can then see that this selling tool gets included in the sales materials that people looking for a home can look through and any time of the year get a real feel for all the best the house has to offer.

If your landscape is a bit drab in the fall and you think you may be selling in a few years, now is a great time to put in some trees, shrubs and perennials that can add some amazing curb appeal.  This is the time of year when you can visit your favorite nursery and see plants in their fall glory.  Don’t wait too long to go and look because the autumn color show doesn’t last forever. (more…)

Our spring bulb assortment just arrived! 

We have tulips, daffodils, narcissi, hyacinth, crocus, allium, muscari and scilla bulbs ready for your fall planting.  These will add a riot of color to your spring garden. 

We have tulips in several colors including a two toned maroon and gold - the Northfield school colors!  We also have blue tulips and gold, for Carleton’s school colors and black tulips and gold ones for the St. Olaf school colors. 

If you have a special event planned for next spring and you would like to have the school colors in your garden - plan now and get them planted this fall!

Bulbs can be planted safely anytime in September and October.  You should plan out where you want your bulbs planted and with the other plants in your garden that will also blossom in the spring so you can have an incredible color display.  You will get the best results with bulbs if you plant them in clusters of several bulbs together.

Now is a great time to start planning your beds for the spring of 2009!  By now you know what did and didn’t work this season and you can also see what other people have done and how it’s doing.  I can take full credit for very few combinations of annuals and perennials - most have been found by trial and error on my part or on the part of a fellow gardener.  So, make those notes now, take those pictures, and let yourself start dreaming about those colors, textures and combinations that are yet to be.

Pictured here is a glorious Morning Glory.  A blue that true will make anyone stop and take notice.  It’s like the sky dropped a little piece of itself and it landed on our trellis.  These Morning Glory vines may be annuals but they are wonderfully vigorous and fast growing climbers that can make quick work of a trellis or an arbor.  This year we planted them on the same trellis as our porcelain vine so that the trellis would fill in more quickly but also to extend the bloom season.

(The above article was submitted by Heidi Gervais - our retail manager)

On today’s journey over to the home of Vince and Lynn Vincent - where our landscaping project this week is taking place - I find that Jim and Todd are doing the bed prep.  Backing up in time a little, our landscape designer, Kristin Lucas, outlined the beds and sidewalk about 2 weeks ago.  She then sprayed the areas that we would be working with Roundup to kill out the unwanted vegetation.  When doing the sidewalk and the edging, we had to remove the dead sod, however, we are leaving that sod down where we are putting the plantings, and amending it with our premium landscape soil mix.  The dead grass will simply decompose and by doing this - will add some nutritional value to the soil, but it also has soil that is attached to the grass which stays in place rather than disposing of it if we don’t need to.  This provides a much better soil base than to remove some of the soil that is attached to the grass if we removed all of the dead sod.  Soil is everything to your new plants.  By giving them a supplement of some good planting mix - especially when you’re working on lots where a lot of the original soil is no longer even there - it gives the plants such a boost! 

Kristin is working with Jim and Todd for a little while this afternoon placing all of the plants she and the Vincents have chosen for the yard.  This is the fun part, because you know that it is only going to look better from here on out!  If the weather holds this afternoon, we should get the majority of the planting done and then on Monday they’ll finish up with the mulching of the beds!   Stay tuned next week for pictures of the completed project!!!!

Today, Jim and Todd are finishing up on the installation of edging blocks.  The typical edging that is used on landscape jobs is the heavy duty, black vinyl edging.  This homeowner has chosen the block because he wants to eliminate as much trimming of his lawn as possible and wants to have the wheel of his lawnmower go on the edging.   This is quite a bit more labor intensive than the vinyl edging and it  definitely does make a statement.

If the weather holds - the fun part comes tomorrow when we add the plants to the many garden areas.

Todd and Jim completed the sidewalk today and it looks great!  Now they’re continuing work on the concrete edging material the customer selected.  The customer wanted something that would lay flat and was wide enough for their riding lawnmower.  Tomorrow - that will be done and then onto the plantings! 

Our landscape crews are busy despite the rain this week.  We are creating a backyard escape for a new home here in Northfield which includes stone edging with a flagstone sidewalk from the garage service door wrapping around to their new deck.  Jim Westlund (our landscape foreman) and Todd Marnie enjoy creating these unique, one of a kind sidewalks.  No two are the same.   I’ll be posting their progress as we go along the next few days until this backyard transformation is complete.   Once the sidewalk is done - we’ll be planting the gardens that will encompass the perimeter of the yard.