with Teri Knight
Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: Behold the Burl
Behold the burl!
Let’s establish what a burl is first. A burl is a tree growth in which the grain has grown in a deformed way.
It’s commonly found in the form of a rounded outgrowth on a tree trunk or branch that is filled with small knots from dormant buds. A burl results from a tree undergoing some form of stress. It may be caused by an injury, virus or fungus.
While some of … [Continue reading]
Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: Pruning in Winter – prepping your pruners
We’re in late winter now, heading into the Spring home stretch. Gardeners! Prepare your pruners! That is if you can get to those trees and shrubs through the piles of snow! Cold temperatures provide the best time to prune because the plants are dormant, their sap flowing less freely and the insects are not a bother.
Timing is everything! Do NOT prune any spring blooming shrubs now, however, it IS a … [Continue reading]
Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: How will the Polar Vortex affect our fruits
It was so cold… how cold was it? They closed schools in Minnesota and Wisconsin for days! THAT’S cold, thanks to the polar vortex! What might that record cold do to our apples and grapes?
APPLES: University of Minnesota Professor of Fruit Breeding, Jim Luby, says, as far as apple cultivars go, those rated as “very good” or “excellent” cold hardiness such as Frostbite and Sweet Sixteen should not … [Continue reading]
Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: Valentine’s Day history
Uh… today is Valentine’s Day! Just a reminder in case you would like to make an impression on a loved one… today would be a good day for that!
So when and where did this tradition start? It’s actually a bit convoluted and somewhat mysterious. There are a LOT of versions!
There were 3 Christian martyrs all named Valentine and in 500 AD, Pope Gelasius created St. Valentines Day to commemorate the martyrs. At that … [Continue reading]
Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: Foliage plants that sparkle
Under layers of winter, I’m thinking of my gardens.
As I do, I ask you, have you ever looked out at your garden in the waning days between Spring and Summer, Summer and Fall and thought, man, my garden looks pooped?
Sparkle it up with foliage plants. I’ve talked about this before, but as we start planning our gardens, it’s a good time to bring it up!
These foliage plants are workhorses of a … [Continue reading]
Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: What’s that blue stuff in the snow?
In 2008, I lived on 5 acres in Lakeville, MN. While wandering through our woods, I discovered smurf blue stains in the snow!
Since the property had been deigned a “farm dump”, we lovingly cleaned it up.
But after spotting that blue stain, we thought “oh no, there’s a bubblin’ crude but it ain’t oil! What the heck is it?”. It’s not like we went out there to spit out our … [Continue reading]
Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: Companion planting
Gazing out at a winter wonderland, I’m making soup using herbs from last year, specifically oregano! They are a wonderful family of plants.
They offer fragrance, taste, medicinal properties and they repel some pests. While not always substantiated by University based information, there are a number of books and articles, as well as old gardeners around that swear by the use of herbs and companion planting.
So this isn’t “necessarily” scientific, however, I know plenty of … [Continue reading]
Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: The Year of the Dahlia
The National Garden Bureau chooses an annual, a tuber, a perennial and a vegetable each year to highlight. For tubers, 2019 is the year of the Dahlia.
These are beautiful plants and we can appreciate their beauty as an annual in our northern gardens. The National Flower of Mexico, the Dahlia, is the genetic source for the modern hybrid dahlias grown today. And there are some beauties.
Dahlias are related to the sunflower, … [Continue reading]
Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: Out of the Polar Vortex with hopes of Spring with my first seed order!
My phone read -33 degrees F last week… Air temperature… not a mistake…
So, today it’s about willing Spring to come with my first seed order!!!!
There’s a new petunia called ‘Spellbound Dark Purple’. The flowers are huge at 4 to 6 inches in shades of dark purple. There’s a flurry of whirling dense blooms with dark centers that look hand-painted, and frilly … [Continue reading]
Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: Milkweed Heaven
Milkweed. THE monarch butterfly magnet!
But it’s not just the common milkweed. There are, in fact, several options. I’ll get to those. Karen Oberhauser, Director of the University of Wisconsin- Madison Arboretum, says part of the massive decline of the monarch is weather related. Early, warm springs tend to be associated with low monarch numbers. She says that may be due to the mismatch in the timing of milkweed availability. Habitat loss, is the number one … [Continue reading]