Garden Grunt

I define “perfect harmony” in the landscape as such: when plant materials accent, compliment and feed into the architecture and character of the house.

I found “perfect harmony” this weekend when I traveled up to Stillwater, MN.  The Victorian, slightly traditional facade of this home was highlighted by the mixture of Annabelle Hydrangeas and creeping Junipers. Perfect.

Have you been yet to Stillwater? Get after it.  Lumberjack days in late July.  Reminds me much of Lansing, Ia.

Happy Planting

kk

Yearly I’ll have customers request pathways during our design consultation.

“Where do you want the path?” I’ll ask.

“From the deck to the patio.” they’ll say.

or “Oh…from the frontyard to the backyard”.

“Really? Do you walk this way quite a bit?” I’ll ask.

“Well…sometimes” they’ll answer.

Here’s my suggestion~wear a tread in the lawn first.

AND THEN install a pathway.

But sometimes you really don’t need a pathway.  Sometimes a pathway dictates where you “think” you need to go…

versus going wherever you want to.

I would much rather choose my path than have it made for me.

Happy Planting…..and tromping through your yard

kk

The Armeria packed a hellova punch this year.

just setting buds

in full flower power glory

This year the flowers lasted at least a month!  Couldn’t believe it!  There are a couple different varieties of Armeria but they are a great addition to any bed edge border.

But once the flowers are spent…what’s a girl to do?

blah

Usually I tell people not to bother with trimming the dead blooms…I’ve got too much other stuff to do.  But since I’ve got such a mass grouping of them, the front landscape would look much better without the spent buds.

Do you deadhead your perennials?

Once clipped (with no rhyme or reason)…they resemble a lil grass tuff…and I kinda think that’s cute.

Happy Planting!

kk

Admittingly I can be lazy.  Lazy in the sense of garden grunting.  Last year when I worked to remove all the grass along the foundation for our planting beds….I failed to install the mulch in a timely manner.  And this is what I’ve got now:

Grass is sprouting up almost everywhere!  I’ve already done my do-diligence and spread PREEN throughout the ENTIRE landscape, but now I’ll have to work extra hard to get those pesky grass roots out.  I will most likely resort to round-up.  But what’s a girl to do!?!  The fresh layer of mulch planned for the weeks coming will not be enough to naturally choke them out!

Alas, I have learned my lesson.  And this new planting bed formed in hopes of creating a living Fort Knox, will not fall to prey the same grass blade.  Even if I have to make my husband do it!

How do you prepare your garden plots?  I might use newspaper next time.

Happy Planting Folks!  And get your mulch down!

kk

I thought it best that I actually explain to you what a “good” tree should look like so that you would have the knowledge to shop responsibly, regardless of where that may be.  This is a follow up to my previous spout about Home Depot.

If you have any questions at all about choosing the right tree, let me know!  I’ll help ya out.

Happy Planting!

Katie

I was really hot yesterday about Home Depot’s genius decision to start stocking trees and small shrubs.  I could barely communicate to you the blatant fact that the quality of their trees was almost laughable….in the sense of  ”I just can’t believe it”….laughable.

I’ve heard of “topping trees”.  I’ve seen the horrid result of such actions, but NEVER have I seen the practice applied to immature, thriving trees found at your local Home Depot.

Yesterday my jaw dropped at the sight of salable plants in March, today, my head is numb from imagining the injustice caused to the Horticulture industry as a whole.

I’m not sure of the motivations behind the butchering of these Maples but just so you know, it’s NOT general practice.  We learn about it in school, only in terms of what NOT to do.  It completely ruins the natural shape of a tree.  It encourages a plethora of small calipered, weak branching.  It’s ugly.  It’s stupid.  And it actually hurts the trees.

Just in case I wasn’t blunt enough:

Don’t “top” your trees.

And don’t buy your plants from Home Depot.

Happy Planting! starting in mid to late April

Katie

Ornamental Trees at Home Depot

I had to scrape my jaw off the pavement when I saw Home Depot’s spring stock lined up along their store front today. HELLO! It’s still March!  If you’re from Iowa or have at least lived here a year or two, you know that we always seem to get dumped on in April….whether it’s snow, sleet, frost or all of three.  So tell me…WHY ARE THEY SELLING TREES NOW!!

It’s a race to spring….bragging rites if you will.  Who had their “stuff” together the quickest…who is going to “service” the “needs” of the community the quickest….who will shop at “our store” first because we were “on top of it.”  I’m not.

And that’s not just because I can buy quality product from TimberPine,  but BECAUSE THIS OBVIOUSLY SHOWS IGNORANCE! can you tell I’m hot about this?  we’ll talk about quality in another post, this is just too much to handle

Alright maybe I shouldn’t have used the word “obvious” because I know that in the weeks to come we at TimberPine will be bombarded with phone calls from people asking when they can purchase a tree, what kind of sales do we have going on right now, etc.  And again I remind you~IT’S STILL MARCH PEOPLE!

Home Depot’s actions here will most likely set the ridiculous bar of standards in which the remaining box stores are sure to follow in suite.

Lord help the small business garden centers amongst us.

I want to know what YOU think.  Am I overreacting?  Set me straight.

I’m not sure how you garden, but I grunt a lot.  Not because the load is heavy, or I’m having a hard time getting down in the dirt (although that sometimes is the case), my grunts generally come subconsciously while I’m contemplating my next garden move.

Sometimes I’ve gotta get down and dirty to figure it out…sometimes I just have to sit back and ponder, visualize.  But whatever the task…whatever the garden…I’m happy to be doing the grunt work to make it pop.

Through this grunting, I hope to enlighten you with tidbits of garden inspiration, what NOT to do based on my struggles and possibility some general, useless information~

• Garden Trinkets bringing a little extra character to your space.
• Getting to the roots of garden matters
• sometimes It ain’t Garden Science
• No, YOU do it yourself
• and Spring is my favorite season but sometimes we gotta discuss the other three.

Thank you for the read and may your gardening journeys be filled with plenty of gruntin!

Happy Planting

Katie