A dramatic and easy to grow additiona to the flower garden, it’s attractive to butterflies.  Growing best in average soil that is moist (but well drained).   Thick wiry roots help it to endure periods of drought.   The Stoke’s Aster is 10% right now as our perennial of the week!

Candylily blooms in a variety of colors and patterns ranging from yellow to orange and red to maroon.  The strap like foliage (much like Iris leaves) are clean and disease resistant all through the season.  As the flowers fade they twist shut later becoming showy black seed pods.  This perennial makes an amzaing addition to any perennial border or cutting garden. 

The above article was submitted by Heidi Brosseau, our retail manager.

We have a list of plants for butterfly gardens under our plants page, and you can always find help with these from any of our retail staff.  Shown here is the Purple Coneflower.  Rudbeckia, Heliopsis, Butterfly Weed and Butterfly Bush  are just a few of the many plants that will attract the butterflies to your garden. Several of our perennials are on sale and there’s always a new perennial of the week that is discounted.

I have had several calls the past day or two from area hosta fanciers wanting this particular plant.  We have them in stock at the present time, but with the national hosta convention this week – I’m sure we’ll be selling out!

It will be headquartered at the Sheraton Hotel in Bloomington and will also include garden tours around the metro area and into southern Minnesota.

Growing hosta – both here at the nursery and at home is definitely a passion of mine.  The hosta on the top is Hosta Striptease, and shown below is Hosta Dance with Me.  Both of these plants are in the medium sized category and I consider them specimen plants.

Grown in a spot with some sunlight provides the best coloration for Dance with Me, and my Strip Tease pictured here also receives just a few hours of sunlight during the day.  Both plants will sport pale lavender flowers mid-to late summer.  Our home hosta garden has over 400 varieties of hosta so it is hard to pick a favorite, but these two definitely rank in the top 10!

We are not part of the garden center tour during the Convention, but we encourage those out and about this week looking for new hosta plants for their gardens to stop in.  We have a huge selection of hosta and would hope that you would be able to find just the one you’re looking for!  If you bring in your registration for the Hosta Convention – we’ll give you 20% off your hosta purchases.

This woodland native needs mostly shade – filtered sunlight to thrive.  Moist organic (slightly acidic) soil will give this plant  just what it needs.  Blooming in early to mid-May, it is a long-lived plant that you will enjoy for many years.

The keys to success are:   Good quality plant materials, proper site preparation that eliminates soil compaction in the areas where new roots will be growing, aggressive root pruning of any matted roots that have developed inside the container, avoiding planting too deep, and consistent watering that is just enough, but not too much.  (most plant death we see is from over-watering)

At Knecht’s Nurseries we have developed our own new one page planting guide that gives the simple, easy to follow steps that you can follow to achieve summer planting success.  Our experienced sales staff can help you select the right plants for your special site conditions.   It’s available under our instructions page – just click and print!

Sweet Woodruff is a vigorous ground cover, easily managed and incredibly gorgeous.  The Gold Heart Bleeding Heart will soon become your favorite!  Both perennials are available for planting this spring here at the nursery.

Virginia Bluebells – a native Minnesota wildflower will grow to a height of 10″-24″.  Groups of  light blue bell-shaped flowers will light up any corner of your early spring flower garden.  They prefer moist, shady areas – such as on the edges of deciduous woods or clearings in the natural habitat.  Plant yours in a shade garden with other shady perennials.  Since it is a native woodland plant, once it has done it thing for spring- it quietly disappears during the rest of the year and waits to delight us again in the spring!

The Lenton Rose – or Helleborus are long-lived, easy to care for perennials.  Planted in moist, well drained soil it will tolerate summer shade if it receives sunlight in the spring.  These plants take a little longer to get established than some perennials, but they are also considered “ever green” meaning you should not prune them back in the spring or fall – just leave them.  If any leaves have died over the winter – prune those leaves off but mine just spring to life in early spring.  One is in a more shady area and that is just now flowering – the one in the picture is in almost full springtime sun and has been blooming for several weeks. 

Companion plants?  Both of these are on the edges of a hosta garden with Cimicifuga and Ligularia also planted there.  The sunnier parts of the bed, I also have some shorter upright sedums planted.  Great combinations.  We have all of these plants in the nursery available for sale.