The Minnesota strain redbud tree, which blooms early and brightens any landscape. It has a great shape, too.

Azaleas and rhododendrons are in full flower now. These are Pink Lights, a variety from the University of Minnesota.

Cherry, apple and crabapple trees are all in bloom now. This is from ‘Bali’ cherry tree.

Which are your favorite flowering shrubs or trees?

The post What’s Blooming This Week? appeared first on Notes from Northern Gardener.

If you are not sure where to shop, consider the great garden centers that are also commercial members of the Minnesota State Horticultural Society. You can download the list here: discount partners If you are a member of MSHS, you get a discount at all the nurseries. Just show your membership card and the discount will be applied. If you’d like to join, you can do it online and still get a discount.

Now, the only question is what plants to buy for your containers and garden beds. What will you be shopping for this weekend?

The post Plant Shopping Time appeared first on Notes from Northern Gardener.

We’re fortunate to have several large, independently owned garden centers in and around the Twin Cities. All of them are great sources of information for gardeners and, we should note, all of them have been supportive of the work of the Minnesota State Horticultural Society.

Today, we are going to highlight Linder’s, a 103-year-old garden center based in St. Paul. Linder’s is a three-generation family-owned nursery and garden center and it all started with celery! Here’s how the Linder’s website describes the business:

Originally, Linder’s was started by Albert Linder in 1910 who grew celery and other vegetables to take to market. Over the years as the demand changed, he transitioned to growing flowers and phased out the vegetables.

Albert passed the business on to his sons, Peter Linder Sr. and Walter Linder who continued to successfully expand the flower production and build several greenhouses to sell their flowers to both wholesale and retail customers. Peter’s children, Dave, Rob, Pete and Lill are the third generation of Linder’s to continue to offer the tradition of high quality and service that stand behind the family name.

Today, Linder’s is a full-service nursery and one of our great garden centers. The main store is on Larpenteur Avenue in St. Paul and the company has 50 seasonal flower marts located from Becker to Hudson, Wis., to Lakeville.

I grew up not too far from the main store, so my Mom and I often shop there when looking for mixed flower baskets for her front porch, succulents for her little succulent dish garden or plants for her terrarium. At this time of year, the big greenhouse is filled with annuals, perennials and vegetable starts. It’s a veritable sea of color — just what we need after this winter. Outside, there’s a wide selection of trees and shrubs. In the main store, you can also find a big selection of  containers, decor and equipment for water gardens, and much more.

Linder’s has a long history of giving back to the gardening community, and from May 17-20, the stores are offering a special for supporters of MSHS. Just fill out this fundraising invitation, bring it to the store, shop to your heart’s content and give the invitation to the checkout clerk. Linder’s will donate 15 percent of your order to support the work of MSHS! Members will still get their 10 percent discount, so bring your membership card.

Thanks, Linder’s, for being such a great garden center — and a great contributor to green causes in Minnesota.

—Mary Lahr Schier

The post Great Garden Centers: Linder’s appeared first on Notes from Northern Gardener.

The daffs look great this year.

They’ll open up tomorrow, we hope.

What a difference a week makes! After an endless April and an early May snowstorm, the weather turned around this week, and the plants are taking off. Today’s photos are all about yellow: yellow tulips, yellow daffodils and, one of our favorite early bloomers, forsythia. Our northern garden finally has some color.

The magnolias are blooming in parts of Minnesota, too, and next week, those glorious Minnesota strain redbud trees should be in full bloom. What’s blooming in your garden?

For fantastic early spring display, plant forsythia, magnolia and a redbud. Your color-starved neighbors will love it.

The post What’s Blooming in Your Northern Garden? May 9 appeared first on Notes from Northern Gardener.

This is the first of a weekly series of photos of what’s blooming in our northern gardens. Send us a picture of your garden blooms at northerngardenerphotos@gmail.com and we will upload the best of them each week.

What’s blooming in the last week of April/first week of May in this slow moving spring?

A dainty early-bloomer — one of the minor bulbs.

After the winter we’ve had, everyone needs some cheery pansies.

Crocus is one of the first plants that provides nectar for bees.

The post What’s Blooming in Your Northern Garden? May 2 appeared first on Notes from Northern Gardener.

The Tangletown Gardens tour features gorgeous gardens in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Owners Dean Englemann and Scott Endres describe Tangletown Gardens as “an urban oasis,” and it is that and more. Tangletown has become a central part of its community. Located at the corner of Nicollet Avenue and East 54th Street in a former gas station, Tangletown offers a large selection of plants for both conservative and adventurous gardeners on the outside and a plethora of garden decor ideas and objects inside. The center is known for its container designs, which grace some of the most posh addresses in Minneapolis.

Its annual Tangletown Garden Tour, held the fourth Saturday of July, takes visitors inside some of the most gorgeous gardens in the area. Many of them are gardens that Tangletown helped design, and all of them feature unusual plants and exciting ideas. If you are looking for inspiration, this tour is one of the best.

A few years ago, Tangletown began growing produce at its growing facility near Plato, MN, (the farm has been in Dean Englemann’s family for generations) and offering Community-Supported Agriculture shares.  Later, Englemann and Endres opened Wise Acre Eatery in the form ice-cream parlor next door. The restaurant uses produce from the farm in its food and waste from the restaurant becomes compost on the farm. Englemann and Endres have been lauded by green industry leaders for their innovative approaches — but for regular gardeners, Tangletown is just a great place to buy plants, pick up on-trend decor and gather ideas for your own garden.

—Mary Lahr Schier

The post Great Garden Centers: Tangletown Gardens appeared first on Notes from Northern Gardener.

Otten Bros. large grounds include several examples of stone and brick work.

Like its neighbor, Otten Bros. is a long-established, family-owned garden center. Founded in 1953 by brothers Bert, Joe and Leonard Otten, it is now owned by Leonard’s son, Cliff Otten. (You can read the firm’s history here.)  From the beginning, Otten Bros. was a full-service landscape company, providing not only plant material and garden decor, but hardscaping, such as patios and stone work. The sprawling 12-acre garden center grounds include examples of brick fire pits, stone fireplaces and pergolas, as well as stone benches, acres of birdbaths, terra cotta pots and sculpture. The evening I was there, TV garden designer Jamie Drurie gave a presentation on human-scale design to a large crowd of gardeners.

There are an abundance of plant options at Otten Bros.

The nursery also carries a large selection of trees, shrubs, perennials and annual plants. In addition, Otten Bros. owns the Flower Farm by Otten Bros., a 7-acre plant haven about 3 miles west of Delano, MN.

Northern gardeners are fortunate to have several large, independently-owned, great garden centers with a wide selection of plants and materials. If you are on the west side of the Twin Cities, Otten Bros. is one well worth visiting.

The post Great Garden Centers: Otten Bros. appeared first on Notes from Northern Gardener.

The nursery’s approach to selling plants is decidedly low-key. There are rows and rows of plants lined up by genus, and you can wander among the choices, placing your selections in a wagon before checking out. Kelley & Kelley grows its own selections of hostas, ferns, coralbells and daylilies in raised beds (so you know they will be Minnesota hardy) as well as growing many plants in the greenhouse.

Kelley & Kelley also has several display gardens for both sun and shade as well as a shop featuring an abundance of garden decor. The large-scale urns and terra cotta pots offered at the nursery are especially impressive. There are places to sit among the gardens, making a trip to Kelley & Kelley feel almost like a visit to a friend’s gardens.

One of the extra benefits of shopping at Kelley & Kelley is that you will get a copy of the nursery’s catalog each spring. This publication is not a catalog in the traditional sense (though it lists plants) but rather an intelligent and erudite magazine filled with thoughts on gardening. For a sample, check out the website’s “This and That from Steve” column written by Steve Kelley.

Check tomorrow’s blog post for another one of Minnesota’s great garden centers that’s just down the road from Kelley & Kelley.

—Mary Lahr Schier

The post Great Garden Centers: Kelley & Kelley appeared first on Notes from Northern Gardener.

Roses at the Sam Kedum Nursery and Gardens.

There are many great garden centers in Minnesota and our area is also host to an abundance of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms. Sam Kedum Nursery and Garden, located just a few miles south of Hastings, Minnesota off of Highway 61, is a hybrid of the two.

Located on a former farmstead, the nursery specializes in roses and other sun-loving plants. You can buy Dr. Griffith Buck roses, climbing, rambling and Rugosa roses as well as antique and heirloom varieties. It’s one of the few places where you can get Bob’s Custom Mix, a special organic fertilizer for flowering plants. I bought a bag there a couple of years ago, and it did seem to help things grow and flower better.

‘Super Hero’ rose at Sam Kedum Nursery and Gardens

Besides the nursery, Sam Kedum’s also features you-pick fruits and vegetables in season as well as homemade preserves. It offers several kinds of CSA memberships, including one that I think is especially appealing — the Fruit Superbowl membership. For $200, you get a huge variety of fruits from gooseberries to apples. (Check out the website for all the details.)

The farm is organic and includes bees and chickens as well as the large orchard, vegetable growing area and even an area for Christmas trees. The farm also includes display gardens, which get prettier as the season progresses. It’s well worth a drive down to Hastings to visit this unusual nursery and garden center.

—Mary Lahr Schier

The post Great Garden Centers: Sam Kedum Nursery appeared first on Notes from Northern Gardener.

The plantings at Squire House Garden look lovely from spring to fall.

Squire House Gardens, a garden center specializing in unusual plants and accessories for home and garden, is located in the quaint village of Afton, along the St. Croix River near Afton State Park. This is a garden center well worth the drive. I’ve visited Squire House in winter and in summer and the gardens and house/shop are always pretty and filled with ideas for the creative gardener.

Water, sculpture and plants blend into the design at Squire House.

Squire House is owned by garden designer and occasional contributor to Northern Gardener Martin Stern and his partner Richard Meacock. Martin  describes his style as “English, but not formal.” The paths in the garden intersect at right angles, but each bed is less formally planted with perennials, annuals and shrubs that bloom in sequence. Martin has orchestrated a series of blooms from bulbs to peonies to iris to lilies to gorgeous late-summer perennials. There’s also a vegetable garden that demonstrates ideas on trellising.

Martin has a talent for placing art and structures in the garden and Squire House Gardens offers plenty of ideas for folks interested in creating new gardens. Squire House also hosts events throughout the year. In March, there was an art show. This Saturday, there will be a tasting of Cherith Valley Gardens food products. For inspiration as well as plants and products, Squire House Gardens is worth a visit.

For a complete list of great garden centers in Minnesota, check out the MSHS list of commercial members. These stores offer discounts to MSHS members; bring your card!

Walk the paths at Squire House Gardens.

The post Great Garden Centers: Squire House Gardens appeared first on Notes from Northern Gardener.