Knecht’s

We’re excited about a new addition to our website. We have now put into our Library, informational articles produced by the Northern Gardener and the Minnesota Nursery and Landscape Association. There are articles about Annuals, Perennials, Trees, Shrubs, Planting Instructions, Pruning Instructions and much more. They are in the PDF format so you can print them off and have them available for reference. Check this new section of our website out! For additional gardening advice - the MNLA also has available a great website called Garden Minnesota.

Our tulips and daffodil displays will be reaching their peak this weekend. The colors are gorgeous. Each year we add about 1000 additional bulbs in our displays to continue to delight our customers! Stop in and view the color display even if you’re not yet ready to begin your spring planting.

The daffodil has to be the most perfect flower. They arrive early in the spring and last for a such a long time! Tulip, daffodils, and crocus make the “spring” color segment of your perennial garden a must! The trick to using these as your spring color component is to plant them behind a summer bloomer which will start to grow and as the summer bloomer is up about 10-12 inches - it will hide the dying foliage of the bulbs by late May or early June!

April 27th is Leif’s birthday - and tomorrow is going to be an absolutely crazy day at the nursery. We are going to have several deliveries of trees, deliveries of mulch and a large shipment of annuals coming in - however - for those of you that stop in tomorrow on Wednesday the 27th - will receive a “birthday present” from Leif - a purple coneflower perennial! Make tomorrow even crazier - and come in for a birthday present!

Some of the cool season annuals, with Forsythias & Magnolias. Hurry on in - Lots to see!

The nursery industry is very busy in the spring as we plant in the field & harvest.

The spring blossoms of trees and shrubs are another one of Mother Nature’s calling cards.
Here is a blossom from the Royal Star Magnolia blossoming here at the nursery. Magnolias blossom before the leaves come out. There are several different variety of Magnolias that can survive the Minnesota winters. They come in tree form and in shrub form as well.

The yellow blossoms of the Forsythia and the Leatherwood brighten up the day as well. The Forsythia, like the Magnolia, blossoms before the leaves appear. These will grow to be larger plants and make wonderful specimen plants in a garden.

The Leatherwood is one of those plants that can take the shade. It is an understory, woodland plant. It likes moist areas and is a slower grower.

Our website has been going now for just over a year and we have had all kinds of positive comments on our blogging. We have been interviewed by Minnesota Public Radio concerning our blog and now next Monday, April 11th, Leif and Griff Wigley, our webmaster, will be doing a live radio show with Suzanne Mulvehill, President of Profit Strategies, Inc. and host of The Entrepreneur Hour Radio Show on WBZT 1230AM out of South Florida. She is doing her Monday radio show on small business blogging and we feel very fortunate to have been asked to participate.

They are able to webstream the radio show live from their website. The time of the show is 11:00 am CT (12:00 noon ET). It will be archived on Profit Strategies website begining approximately a week after airing so if you can’t hear it on Monday - just check back and listen to it anytime!

This year we will have a very limited number of Fern Leaf Peony available. We were able to order some this winter to come in with our spring shipment and are very excited.

These are wonderful plants but hard to find. If you wish to be put on a list to purchase one - please let us know!

The Pasque Flower (Pulsatilla Vulgaris - Anemone) is about one of the prettiest spring perennial flowers that you will find. Each year when we wake up our perennials from over-wintering, this lovely flower greets us almost right away! The Pasque Flower (Pulsatilla hirsutissima) is the South Dakota State Flower.

The Lenton Rose (Helleborus xhybridus) is also blossoming! It is the 2005 Perennial of the Year - named by the Perennial Plant Association. This awesome perennial is one of those plants that will light up the shade garden!

We are now open 7 days a week and encourage you to stop in and check out these two perennials! We stock over 500 different varieties of perennials, over 200 hosta varieties and 500 tree and shrub varieties.

The nursery industry is like being a farmer, but the biggest difference is that we plant and harvest in the spring. Leif is pictured here with our Majesty Sugar Maples marking them for harvest. We will start to ball and burlap these trees in a week or so and the different ribbons indicate the variety and size of the basket that will be used in harvest. The white wraps you see laying on the ground are used in the winter to protect the trunks of the trees from sun scald, rabbit and rodent damage. We remove them in the spring and re-install in the fall.

The White Pine pictured here is a wonderful tree - my personal favorite. We will be bringing in about 750 fresh dug balled and burlapped (B&B) trees in just a few short weeks. We’ll have several varieties of Maples, Oaks, Lindens, Ornamentals, Honeylocusts, Spruce, Pine and many, many more. We will have these same varieties available in containers as well, for those who may not want to handle a bigger B&B tree.

The crocus have already starting blossoming on the hillside here at the nursery. The hill along the driveway faces south so it warms up early and we are delighted by these harbingers of spring! What a wonderful site to see. The tulips in many places are up a few inches as well. We do encourage everyone watch our hillside and road ditch. There are hundreds of daffodil, tulip and crocus bulbs planted and in a few short weeks - we’ll have an explosion of spring color!

We are unofficially officially open. The phone has been ringing, people are stopping, and we’re still trying to get organized but decided to “open the doors”.
By the end of the week we should should be pretty much ready for the trees and shrubs. The perennials are still in the “waking up” production stage but we are selling them now as well! The sign is out and we encourage everyone to stop in and start planning your planting needs for 2005!