Knecht’s

For those of you who are thinking about re-doing an area at your home or those with new homes that need landscaping - now is the time for thinking about that Landscape Design Plan. The designers can meet with you now, discuss things that you like and don’t like, and start working on that plan. You can have the final draft in a few weeks and then you’ll be ready to actually start as soon as spring arrives!

Get a head start. Kristin Lucas - one of our designers is currently offering $50 off a Design Plan of 8 hours or more. Contact us for more details!

Now that the holidays are over and even though it is still the first part of January - we are in full gear for the upcoming season. The winter work consists of hiring new employees, doing the year-end books for 2007 and tax forms, advertising programs for this year, creating price lists, getting pricing from vendors from plants to landscaping supplies, and the list goes on. The next six weeks we’ll be busy with office work and then we turn the greenhouses on and plants start to arrive.

This week - we all head up to the Minneapolis Convention Center for the annual Minnesota Green Expo. Three days of seminars, networking with others in the industry, sharing ideas, and visiting the vendors in the Trade Show. The landscape division will attend seminars that share ideas and pointers on all sorts of landscape installations, the landscape designers get ideas from others and on different plants that are popular, the retail division gets promotion ideas, ideas on what works good and what doesn’t, and the production side of things is always educational as we see new equipment, new planting methods - ideas that work, and so on.

There are eight from Knecht’s heading up for this wonderful learning opportunity sponsored by the Minnesota Nursery and Landscape Association. Spring fever has definitely set in.

This is the time of year when we sit around the table - look out at a snow covered yard, probably on a cloudy day and get depressed! If the sun would shine - it wouldn’t be so bad… If it were closer to April and the snow would start to melt - hey that would be great!

But — we can only sit and dream a little and resolve to do better for our garden this year!

New Year’s Resolutions shouldn’t always be centered around losing weight and exercising. How about ways to make the gardens look better come spring and summer!

Heidi (our retail manager) and I came up with a few resolutions for the garden. The list could go on and on … Come up with your own!

1) I will remove any buckthorn that I find. It’s alot of work - but so much better for the yard.
2) That over-grown shrub in front of the house — as much as I like it - it is now time for it to go and I’ll replace it with a new variety.
3) Even though my neighbor will give me more of the hosta she divides - I want to try a new and different variety. Perhaps one with larger leaves, maybe a variegated one makes your head turn when you walk by it…
4) The winters are warmer now - I resolve to try one new perennial that is marginally zone 4 hardy. I want to live dangerously. Zone 5 - here I come.
5) Petunias, and marigolds. They’re so reliable. I’ll keep on planting them - but a few less. I want to try a new annual variety.. Perhaps a different color than most.
6) I’m going to finally get the name markers by my perennial plants. I’ll find the stakes this winter, and the marking pen and come spring - I’ll get them labelled.
7) I’ll faithfully fertilize, amend the soil in the beds that need a little help and mulch where I can. And finally - I will get those tulip and daffodil bulbs planted this fall so NEXT spring - I’ll have that early spring color.