I have found myself looking forward to the blossoming of the redbuds that have been planted here and there around town. Redbuds consistently provide lovely purple blossoms, and usually lots of them.
We recommend the Minnesota Strain Redbud mostly because of their demonstrated hardiness. As the Magnolia and Forsythia flowers of early spring begin to fade, the Redbud flowers burst right through the bark. It’s like a miracle every year. Unlike most flowering shrubs and trees, no flower buds can be seen on the dark grey twigs, yet all of a sudden they are erupting through the bark, and in a few days time, the tree is covered. Redbud blossoms also seem to last longer than flowering crabs.
Minnesota Strain Redbud favors part fo full sun, and properly drained soil that has some good organic matter content. Grows to 15′ tall x 15′ wide in 10-15 years here in southern Minnesota. We have Redbuds available in several different sizes and price points. Stop in soon to get your very own Redbud.
After a long Minnesota winter, many of us are craving the sight of the spring blossoms. Hardy Magnolias have proven to be one of the best landscape plants to provide early spring blossoms that are large and showy.
While crocuses, daffodils, tulips and cilla are other great plants to get a fix of early spring flowers, the hardy Magnolias can give a nice upright mass of lovely blossoms in a variety of mature sizes and colors. With spring coming late the Magnolias have just started blossoming this last week.
Royal Star Magnolia has a nice white fragrant blossom with about 25 petals arranged into a width of 3-4 inches. This is a smaller sized Magnolia maturing to 8’-10’ tall.
Merrill Magnolia also has 3” plus white blossoms with wider petals, and a sizeable mature size of 30’ to 40’ tall by 30’ wide.
Leonard Messel Magnolia sports pink and white blossoms and a medium mature height of 15’ -20’ which makes a showy statement every spring.
Ann Magnolia is another short variety, growing to 8’-10’ and has eye catching reddish purple blossoms for people who prefer more color intensity. All 4 of these magnolias have demonstrated very good hardiness.
We do recommend on all these magnolias a once a year application of systemic insecticide to prevent Magnolia scale. This procedure requires no spry, since the recommended soil drench requires only a pail, 1 gallon of water, a few ounces of product and 1 minute of time to mix the solution and pour it on the ground around the trunk. Also, when planting Magnolias it is a good idea to add some additional peat to the soil as Magnolias do like a more acid soil.
Open Easter Sunday!! Our late spring has delayed alot of the fun in the garden, but it’s going to be a beautiful day and we’ll be here from 10 am to 4 pm. We have a full selection of trees, shrubs and perennials along with a nice assortment of annual 4-paks, veggies and even some herb planters.
Just for Easter Sunday only - we’ll have an Easter basket filled with plastic eggs containing a surprise discount for the day. Come in and pick an egg for a extra-special eggciting discount! Hop on in – we’ll be here. Discounts will be from 10% to 15% and are applicable to any plant material! (even plants that are on sale!) Discount applies only to plant material – no hardgoods, mulches or bagged product.
An early harbinger of spring is the Northern Sun Forsythia tree. This bright yellow beacon grows to only 8′-12′ tall and 7′-9′ wide, making it perfect for small spaces providing a great vertical accent in borders or foundation plantings. This hardy forsythia, zone 4-8, sports its huge bright yellow flowers in early spring before the foliage appears. The medium green foliage on arching branches is attractive all season. With spring being so reluctant to come this year, it warms the heart to just look at these trees out in our displays
During April, we have over 200 selected balled and burlapped (B&B) trees on sale at 50% off.
Maples
Oaks
Lindens
Elms – disease resistant
Flowering & Ornamental trees
These are 2010 carry-over trees that are in excellent condition and warrantied. You can flag the trees at the time of purchase and pick them up anytime during April. You will find exceptional values! If these larger trees are more than what you’re wanting to handle – we have thousands of potted trees for sale and you may want to check out our “Bargain Areas” where you will also find potted trees that have been deep discounted.
We would like to extend the opportunity for you, your child’s class, your service club, your church group, your softball/bowling team, your carpool, your neighbors…. to join us in sponsoring tree plantings for our city, to be planted in public spaces.
Knecht’s will provide trees at half price. As a sponsor of a tree for Northfield City parks, you pay the other half of the cost (see chart below). City staff will select planting sites. You get the satisfaction of knowing you’ve helped make us a stronger and more beautiful community, and can enjoy watching these trees grow more majestic with each passing year.
Your cost of sponsorship – choose the size/price for the tree(s) you wish to donate.
Tree Only Tree & Planting
#3 Container – 3′-6′ $20.00 $40.00
#7 Container – 5′-8′ 40.00 80.00
#15 Container – 8′-12′ 60.00 120.00
2 1/2″ B&B – 10′-16′ 150.00 300.00
City Staff will choose from the following tree varieties - Maple, Oak, Hackberry, Linden, Honeylocust, disease resistant Elm, Coffeetree, Birch, Tree Lilacs & Flowering Crabs. The City Staff will also choose planting sites on City Property / Parks.
To sponsor a tree, just contact Knecht’s Nurseries & Landscaping at 507-645-5015 or send us an e-mail at info@knechts.net. Or if you prefer, you can contact TJ Henricy, Streets & Parks Supervisor for the City of Northfield at 507-645-3032 or TJ.Heinricy@ci.northfield.mn.us
We have updated our plant lists for 2011. Included in these lists are the new plants coming in this spring! Take a look at the lists and make some notes on what you want to add to wish list. In just a few days, we begin potting up perennials and some trees. The weather looks like it will take a turn toward spring – with even some 50′s in the forecast. The updates to our Plant Search pages will be completed in just a couple of weeks as well.
Flowering trees have long held a great attraction. Most flower in the spring when we are desperately craving color and lush blossoms, but unfortunately most who produce fruit or seeds that eventually drop on gardens, walks, lawns and driveways, creating a mess of varying degrees.
Bailey Nurseriesin St. Paul has introduced a variety of Japanese Tree Lilac that is loaded with large creamy white flower heads that produce no fruit or seeds. Enjoy the show and skip the mess by planting the ‘Snow Dance’ Japanese Tree Lilac. Rod Bailey, of Bailey Nurseries, made this varietal selection and it is a welcome addition to the fairly short list of sterile flowering trees. ‘Snow Dance’ Tree Lilac (syringa reticulata ‘Bailnce’ ) grows shorter than some other Japanese Tree Lilac varieties, with a noticeably wider spread. The lack of seed pods allows the eye to appreciate all the more the elegant spreading nature of ‘Snow Dance’. Tolerates alkaline soils – avoid damp, poorly drained soils. The size rating is 18′ tall x 20′ wide and the hardiness zone is 3 to 7.
Once the snow has melted and spring is here – stop in at the nursery and check out our selection of ‘Snow Dance’ Japanese Tree Lilac.
The Hackberry has proven itself to be an excellent shade tree alternative to American Elms that have died from Dutch Elm Disease. Spreading tall and wide similar to a classic elm, the native Hackberry grows well in many soil types.
For spaces where a full size Hackberry tree is simply too large, Prairie Sentinel Hackberry may offer a tough and versatile choice for a more compact size. While common Hackberry (celtis occidentalis) matures to 75′ tall by 50′ wide, the Prairie Sentinel Hackberry can grow well in difficult urban sites and more limited spaces while maturing to a tamer size of 45′ tall and only 12′ wide.
J. Frank Schmidt & Son Nursery from Boring, OR, introduced this Hackberry, having discovered it growing in the rugged plains of western Kansas, it is hardy in Zone 4. We’ll have these exciting new trees available here at the nursery in the spring.
In recent days, the Northfield area landscape has had a wintery look, but we are still planting trees and a few hardy customers still venture in to get trees for late season projects of their own. The 2010 growing season had very favorable weather, despite the unfortunate flooding in late September.
Because the loyal and consistent support of Northfield makes it possible for us to keep improving our nursery and landscaping operations, we enjoy the opportunity to give back to our community. Last week, we donated to the City of Northfield, 24 different varieties of shade trees to be planted along the new walking path at Old Memorial Park, the site of Northfield’s new swimming pool. The City of Northfield covered the cost of having the trees planted. The photo shows Jim Westlund and Todd Marnie during the planting of one of the trees on November 11th.
The Master Plan for Old Memorial Park calls for the planting of over 100 trees to beautify the park. Anyone who wants to sponsor the $150.00 cost of planting a tree at Old Memorial Park can contact Scott Carpenter (neighborhood resident) at 645-8501 or Leif Knecht at 645-5015.
Knecht’s Nurseries will donate a nice sized shade tree to the park for each $150 donation to cover the cost of planting. Most trees are 2″-3 ½” trunk diameter and 10′-20′ tall. An effort will be made to have each tree be a variety different from those previously planted.
I have also shared this blog with the Northfield News.
We have all enjoyed the beauty of the hydrangea trees for the last several months and now the blossoms have faded and turned brown. Now is the time to prune off the flower clusters. These spent flowers catch the snow (and ice) from winter storms and the weight of this snow and ice can cause the branches to snap off. We learned this lesson the hard way. A few years ago, we hadn’t gotten to pruning the hydrangea tree yet and we had a late fall snow. The flowers caught the heavy snow and the branches started to bend causing one of the main branches up in the tree to split off. It took a couple of years of new growth to fill in the gap created by this branch snapping off. I pruned our Tardiva tree hydrangea this morning with our garden loppers and it took just about ten minutes start to finish.
Today – Sunday November 7th – is our last official retail sales day. Our perennials are already tucked away for winter, and we have started the over-wintering process on our production areas. Our retail shrubs will be available yet for a few more days until they too, will be covered up for winter protection.
We will still have a couple hundred potted trees available and our larger balled and burlapped trees should be available for most of November. Our crews can continue to plant these trees for you even with a couple of inches of frost in the ground. The trees have already gone dormant, so we can plant them and in the spring they wake up in their new home! Our larger in ground field trees will be available for most of November.
We have mulch – bags and bulk and cow manure compost still available for your late fall garden clean-up. Don’t forget the tree wraps for your trees. Our firewood bundles are ready to go and we are delivering orders for fireplace cords of firewood! Kristin Lucas, our designer, is still visiting with customers regarding their landscapes and will be doing design work all winter!
The intense windstorm of October 26th and 27th comes on the heels of some of the mildest October weather we have ever experienced. This has extended the length of the fall color season, and opportunities to get out and see the succession of reds, yellows, oranges, and burgundy that delights our eyes and soothes the soul.
One of my favorite times of the year is when the Northern Red Oaks and Northern Pin Oaks finally come into their peak of fall color in mid to late October. Most of the Sugar Maples have shed all their leaves, but the Quaking Aspen display their glorious gold at the same time as the Oaks show reds and burgundy. A wonderful new tree variety can also add a lovely gold to the late October landscape.
Dakota Pinnacle Birch grows quickly into a straight and very well proportioned upright shape, and turns a beautiful buttery gold at the very end of the fall color showcase, extending the autumn colors into early November. The Dakota Pinnacle in our memorial park at our home will hit peak color this year on October 27th or 28th, and blends beautifully with the Pin Oaks, Maples, Red Twig Dogwood and Flame Willow seen in the photo to the left.
An added virtue of Dakota Pinnacle Birch is the beauty of the pure white bark, which only increases as the leaves fall away by mid-November. Dakota Pinnacle is also very versatile – showing an ability to gracefully tolerate alkaline soils. River Birch sometimes struggle in alkaline soils, so you may want to consider Dakota Pinnacle Birch the next time you want to add a touch of distinction to your landscape. Our fall sale will continue for the next 10-14 days and all plants are at least 30% off.
The amazingly mild October days and nights have been a joy for anyone working or playing outdoors this fall. If there is any downside at all to this fine weather, it has been the muted fall colors I have noticed the past ten days or so.
The best conditions for excellent fall color is a period with warm days and crisp nights with a bit of light frost. We had some frost several weeks ago, but since then nighttime temperatures have been considerably above normal, and the result has been noticeably less intense fall color on the varieties that turn color in the last half of the fall color season.
One tree that has showed nicer than usual fall color this year is the Celebration maple. Many years this useful hybrid maple of modest size simply turns to a soft shade of yellow. This year, the Celebration maples in our fields have a lovely orange/apricot glow that is really quite striking. Celebration also distinguishes itself with very uniform and strong branch angles, and a narrower width than most shade trees, making it a good choice for smaller spaces between buildings and along lot lines.
It shows how we plant a B&B (balled and burlapped) tree. These trees are larger and a little harder to plant than container trees, and it will show from start to finish how our crews plant them. Thanks to my webmaster, Griff Wigley, for getting this up on the website for me.
During our fall sale- we have exceptional buys now on our existing B&B inventory. You can hire us to plant these trees and put the fall sale savings toward the installation costs!
Just for Easter Sunday only - we’ll have an Easter basket filled with
