We sell gift certificates throughout the holiday season. We can do these for any amount - can take the information over the phone or internet and we can send them to you for your holiday giving or we can mail them out for you with an appropriate message!
Remember - a gift certificate for plants is the gift that will continue to grow and give with each passing year!
Our employees are busily moving plants and covering them for their long winter’s sleep! We are asked what we do with all of the plants we have left at the end of the season. Well - we move them together - tip them - rat bait each section to prevent winter damage, cover with closed cell foam and then with plastic. The plastic is then weighted down with sand and mulch to keep the winds out. It is quite a process and by Nov. 8th - will have almost all of our plants covered for winter. Our retail division will be officially “closed” tomorrow. We do however continue to have hours since the landscape division will continue for a couple of weeks yet. We will have a small assortment of potted trees available and many balled and burlapped trees will still be available. We suggest that you give us a call to make sure someone is here to help you after Nov. 8th.
The preparations you make in the fall for the long winter ahead are some of the most important hours that you can spend in the garden. Protect sensitive plants. The picture here shows the protection that I have given a zone 5 hydrangea that we have in our shade garden. We have had this plant here for three seasons now and I suround it with this shelter and have filled it with leaves for extra cover. Don’t be afraid to try plants that are hardy in zone 5. I have a zone 6 perennial which has come back for the second season as well. I add extra mulch over the entire root system and pull it back in the spring!
The bark on young trees - especially fruit trees, crabapple, and maple trees are tasty to the mice, voles and rabbits. In addition to the feast for these little critters, young bark is subject to frost cracking from the winter sun warming the trunk and then with a severe drop in temperatures, frost cracking can occur. For those living in areas with deer - the buck rubs to young trees can be devasting to these young plants. Here at the nursery we use white plastic curly-cue wraps. Heavy paper tree wrap can also be used. The guideline we usually give folks is to put the wraps on by Halloween and remove them at Easter time. It is very important that you remove it during the growing season so the bark can breathe - so moisture doesn’t gather behind the wrap and potentially cause rot to set in and also keeps insects away from the trunk.
The most frequently asked question that we have in the fall is “How do I protect my Endless Summer Hydrangea”. This picture from last season - shows Heidi covering the plant with approximately 10-12 inches of shredded bark mulch after the ground has frozen and we have cut the plant back to about 8-10 inches tall. We “bury” it with the mulch and then around the end of April or early May (depending on the spring) we pull the mulch back - use it either on this bed or another - and the plant just takes off for the growing season!
I used this picture last summer in a post about keeping plants watering during the July drought. Well - guess what? We now have a fall drought. As most of you have probably already heard from listening to the news is that we have had one of the driest Octobers on record! This week of mild weather is the perfect time to water all of your landscape plants but most importantly, any new plants from this season, one more time.
Deciduous plants (leafy) use almost no water once they shut down for the season but evergreens will continue to use moisture through the winter. It is definitely necessary to get out and give any of your evergreens an extra hearty drink of water before you put the hose away for the final time. As the picture depicts - even it if is raining - or has rained - give them an extra dose of water. In the spring you have probably seen evergreens that look brown and you think they may have even died but most of the time it is winter burn. (Like sunburn in the summer - only happening in the winter!) You can help prevent this with extra watering in November.
Now for a few other fall tips -
The November 4th article in the Northfield News was one of my favorite articles that Leif has written - not only is it written exceptionally well - it features our pride and joy - one of our grandsons - Jordan. The article follows:
Last Thursday my grandson Jordan and I began a project that I hope will shape a young mind, and nurture a tender hearted boy into a man with a big heart and an unshakeable vision for the future of our land. On a sunny mid-October day we strolled out the back door of my home and into a remnant of Minnesota’s Big Woods, each with an ice cream pail in hand.
Kneeling beneath the canopy of the mature Oak-Maple-Basswood forest, we brushed aside the drifts of dry leaves. To our delight a veritable carpet of acorns covered the ground. The rich tawny brown of the acorns was accentuated here and there as shafts of sunlight danced through the branches overhead. Here was what we had come out into the forest to find. Here lying on the ground before us were the forests of tomorrow.
Jordan eagerly grabbed the acorns and began filling one of Grandma Deb’s ice cream pails. Side by side we worked, a little kid and a big kid, both focused on harvesting the bounty of the stately Oaks towering overhead.
Soon the buckets grew heavy and the carpet of acorns thin. I was almost ready to call a halt to our collecting when Jordan excitedly jumped up and announced he would look for another tree with more acorns. His excitement carried me along and I followed to the other side of the yard.
There at the edge of our shade garden, we found the most beautiful acorns I’d ever seen. Slightly bigger than those from the other Red Oaks, these acorns had pronounced stripes and a brilliant amber brown seed coat.
As my enthusiasm mounted right along with Jordan’s, I had a flashback to a similar time of discovery, fifty years earlier. When I was in kindergarten and first grade, I spent many happy hours prowling the stream banks of Prairie Creek, and following it from our home at the end of East 5th Street down past Carleton’s riding stables and into the college arboretum.
It mattered little what I discovered in the Arboretum. One day it was the spring flowers, a carpet of loud blue scilla that closely followed the more understated hepatica and the bright white bloodroot. Another day my discoveries consisted of snails, frogs, clams, dragonflies and the delightful squishing of soft mud between bare toes in the creek bed.
What mattered most was the excitement of discovery, just like finding the especially beautiful acorns by our prize hostas. Jordan was excited and so was I, for our goal that day went far beyond ice cream pails filled with acorns. Our goal was to create the forests of the future.
Together Jordan and I floated off the bad acorns in a 5 gal bucket half full of water, and then immersed the good acorns (the sinkers) in 120 degree water for 5 minutes to kill any weevils that might be inside. I explained to Jordan that we would have to store the acorns in moist sand in a refrigerator over the winter, and promised that the first week of March we would bring him to the nursery to help plant the acorns. He knows that when the acorns grown into little oak trees, we will be planting them in a special place in the meadow just outside the woods. This will be the start of Jordan’s grove.
Over the next several years Jordan will help us collect and plant seed from Sugar Maples, Black Cherry, Hackberry, Northern Pin Oak, White Oak and Autumn Blaze Maple. From each batch, Jordan knows we will plant one tree in his grove of trees, and that the rest will go to help other people grow the forests of tomorrow. With Jordan’s brothers, Tyger and Brandt, we will do likewise, hoping to help tender young hearts and minds grow into a love for the world and a vision for the future.
Certainly 21st century civilizations change the natural world on a daily basis, often leaving it bruised and beaten. Remember that we are not helpless in the face of these changes. We can restore the landscape of our world, nation, state, city, township and backyards one acorn at a time.
In one heart and one mind at a time, we can spark the joy of discovery and the love of the natural world. A few bushels of tree seed can start a whole new forest, where decades in the future a six year old grandchild will shout “Hey Grandpa, look what I found!”, and the cycle of discovery will start all over again.
The six year old child still lives in each of us. Discovery, awe and wonder are not a function of age, but rather a product of a way of life, of placing ourselves in situations where it can happen.
Short walks, long walks, planting a garden or a forest, watching sunsets and moon rises, and helping a child experience the world are but a few of the activities that lead us to discovery, awe and wonder. It doesn’t get much better than this.
Labels: Forests of the Future; Yard and Garden Notes by Leif
