Planting for Pollinators

Monarch butterflies love milkweed!

Pollinators are creating a big buzz in media around the world.  Pollinators are facing a perfect storm of intersecting catastrophes including loss of habitat and the ongoing assault on nature being perpetuated by chemical companies. Scientists are discovering that massive amounts of pollinators are currently facing endangerment and extinction.

Simply put, without pollinators we’re going to be pretty hungry.  It’s estimated that 35% of the worlds food crops are grown with the help of pollinating insects, birds, and bats.  Without plant pollinations services performed by pollinators we can kiss our apples goodbye.  Pumpkins, pears, peaches, peas, and pomegranates are a sampling of the delicious delights we’ll be wishing for if pollinators perish, YIKES.

Both of these beauties were planted today, creating habitat within another new butterfly garden courtesy of Giving Tree Gardens.

Asclepias Tuberosa

A beautiful milkweed variety that blooms in brilliant orange

Prairie Sage

Another favorite of monarch butterflies.

So what can you do to help?  Lots! 

1.      First things first, eat organic.  Organic farmers tend to have much better pollinator protections than do pesticide farmers. 

2.      Call your elected officials and demand organic facilities including parks and schools.  The chem industry has a stranglehold on American life and we need to take back our public spaces for public safety.

3.      Manage your lawn without pesticides.  Herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, and rodenticides are all harmful to pollinators.  Go organic, and make sure your lawn services aren’t using any type of ‘icide!

4.      Plant a pollinator garden.  You’re grass lawn isn’t doing wildlife any favors.  Replace as much lawn as you can with deep rooted native perennial plants.

Providing for Pollinators

Below is a handful of my favorite plant varieties that protect and provide for pollinators:

Meadow Blazingstar

Liatris Ligulistylis is the Latin moniker for this monarch magnet.  Monarch butterflies call in early reservations to sip and sup at this fine dining experience. 

At 4 + feet tall these purple stocks make bold textural statements in a prairie garden design.  I plant them in clumps for extra effect. 

There are many kinds of blazingstar to choose from, but if you want to make friends with the monarchs grow the meadow variety. 

Joe Pye Weed

Eutrochium Maculatum is a fancy way to say Joe Pye Weed.  

At between 6 and 8 feet tall this plant is a towering beauty.  Butterflies, bees, and birds all enjoy Joe Pye and stop in the garden to say hi when he’s in bloom. 

Supposedly this plant is named for the man who shared it as a medicine which is a good reminder that every plant around us is either food or medicine of some sort for people or wildlife. 

Milkweed

Asclepius, Asclepius, Asclepius.  Sounds like something Harry Potter would say to make butterflies magically appear.  In fact, these plants do make monarch butterflies magically appear! 

As caterpillars, monarchs munch as much milkweed as possible.  Milkweed provides monarchs with the strength to transform and migrate from Minnesota to Mexico.

Plant milkweeds of all kinds, my favorite is Asclepius syriaca, common milkweed, because it’s stunning to look at and it brings in the butterflies!

Wild Blue Indigo

Also known as Baptisia Australis this prairie native fills out with a rare true blue flower each spring. 

Yes, bumble bees love it, but so will you when you realize that the 25’ deep roots of indigo will fix nitrogen into the soil.  I plant this at the base of all my fruit trees as a friendly companion. 

Mix Baptisia into your butterfly garden border to benefit bumble bees and beautify your backyard. 

White Clover

Trifolium repens, white clover is a friend to us all. 

Got mulch?  Tired of putting down wood mulch every year?  Over-seed your newly installed veggie and butterfly gardens with white clover to fix nitrogen in the soil and provide an early bloom in the backyard buffet for bees. 

Purchase seed to use as a cover crop after any new garden installation and forget about mulching forever. 

I spread seeds for white clover in lawns, food gardens, perennial gardens, and under trees and shrubs, basically everywhere.

Creating Thriving Compost & Soil Biology

Building a compost pile first thing this morning felt somehow ceremonial. After learning about compost making from Dr. Elaine Ingham this weekend with Jake Voit, Ross Abbey, Cherry Flowers, Karen Clark, Iman Mefleh, and many more amazing folks, I was inspired to dig in.

The Goal:

This pile follows the basic recipe that Dr. Ingham has developed to create a balanced, biologically diverse, and thriving compost pile. With this recipe we're trying to grow a balance of fungus and bacteria that will work symbiotically with root systems to unlock a huge amount of fertility from the soil.

The Recipe:

• 30% Leaves (diverse varieties)
• 30% Wood Chips (diverse varieties)
• 30% Green Plant Material (hay, not straw, cut grass, comfrey, diverse varieties)
• 10% Nitrogen Material (cow manure, food waste, coffee waste, barley)

Green Plant Material

It's pre-growing season so I don't have a lot of extra green plant material lying around and I'm having trouble locating hay. I ended up sacrificing some banana leaves and other house plant cuttings in order to introduce at least a little green plant material.

Fungal Inoculation

I'm collecting different types of stumps to get a wide variety of fungus. In a healthy soil you'll find more than 75,000 varieties of microorganisms. This huge variety can be cultivated by keeping a back-stock of wood chips and inoculating it with various handfuls of rotting wood, compost, and old growth soils. When out in the woods collect a pinch or two of soils to bring home and inoculate your wood chips or compost.

As recommended by Dr. Ingham, this pile is inoculated with some old rotted stump that was thoroughly infused with fungus as well as some nicely rotted leaves from my garden. The materials were all blended in the back of my truck before being blended again while filling the compost bin.

The Process

Now it's time to soak it down and start to monitor temperature. When the pile reaches 160 degrees I'll open up the chicken wire, spill it out onto a tarp, and mix the ingredients all up making sure to turn the insides of the pile to the outside, and the outside of the pile to the inside. I'll repeat the monitoring and turning until the compost reaches ambient temps, then I'll know it's done.

As the pile matures I'll use the fancy new microscope I'm ordering today to monitor the compost biology. I'll be looking for a high and balanced fungal and bacterial count as well as for beneficial nematodes. The plan is to use this pile to inoculate future piles and to keep growing the diversity of soil microbes as time progresses.

The Planet

Every time I spread compost or make a new compost pile I'm reminded that we owe our existence to a very thin layer of soil on a big lonely rock floating through space. A little ceremony that leads to a burst of soil biology feels like a good start toward recognizing this humbling position we all share as Earthlings.

3 Garden Success Secrets

3 Secrets Guaranteed to Grow Garden Success this growing season:Secret # 1: Double Dig

Double digging is the best way to turn a tiny yard into a year round gourmet delight for your family and the ecosystem as a whole.

Best_Business__1

To double dig is simply to mix compost deep into the ground before you plant.  Typically I’ve seen landscapers and gardeners mixing compost in soil to a depth of between six inches and one foot when installing a new garden.  This is fine if you have plenty of space to produce your food in, but anybody who’s grown a healthy zucchini in a city yard knows that every inch of space can count.  In order to double dig, mix your compost into the ground to a depth of between two and three feet.  The deeper you dig in the compost, the more room there is for the roots to grow down deep instead of outward along the surface.  When roots have room to grow deep, plants can be placed closer together, thus making your yard able to produce more food! 

Once you have mixed your soil, you’ll never need or want to turn it again, instead you can add compost as a top dressing for your gardens every spring.  Trash to compost, compost to earth, and earth to dinner plate, now that’s a cycle we can all live with.  The hops vines shown in right side of this picture grew 12 feet in a single season due to the 4 foot double dig we did before we planted.

 Secret #2:  Save Your Seeds 

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Seeds are like currency.  You can’t get food without them.  So it makes sense that the more variety and volume of seeds that you have the more solid the guarantee you have that your shelves will be stocked.  We need to make sure that We The People are in charge of our seeds.  We need to grow independent of big seed producing companies, so that we get to choose our local food selection.  Store your seeds in clearly marked envelopes inside of plastic zip lock bags, air tight containers, or mason jars with tight fitting lids and place them in cool, dark, dry cupboards or boxes.

Secret # 3:  A Little Clay Goes A Long Way

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Secret #3 is perfect for gardeners with sandy soil.  There is an old farmers rhyme that comes handed down from generations before to help us remember:  "Sand into clay is money thrown away, but clay into sand is money in the hand".

What these wise farmers of old would have us understand is that while you won’t get any benefit from adding sand into clay soil,  you will get benefits from adding clay into sand.  Clay will help retain moisture in a sandy or loamy soil.  If you mix clay soil with a little of your compost before spreading the compost you will give your garden all it needs to grow up healthy and strong right from the start.   Clay soil is fairly easy to procure in small amounts throughout the twin cities area, if you don’t know a farmer or developer who will let you scoop enough for your sandy gardens, than I’d recommend consulting with Craigslist. 

Urban Farm Supporters Save $50

Are you an you an urban farm CSA member in 2013?

Urban Farm CSA members can save $50 off the price of any one of these Giving Tree Services:

Back_Yard_Chickens

• Garden Coaching Session
• Home Landscaping Consultation
• Organic Lawn Fertility Treatments

SIGN UP HERE and mention the name of the Urban Farm that you support to redeem your $50 off coupon!

Pizza on the Patio

Giving Tree Gardens has been busy building some exciting Minneapolis landscapes this summer.  This pizza-oven and natural stone patio installation is the latest and greatest portion of the newly renovated Permaculture-made-pretty backyard living space at the Loomis residence in NE Minneapolis.

Team work pays off and this project brought together a great team of creative and skilled builders.

The lovely and functional pizza oven you see here was hand built by Minneapolis' own Frances Michaelson with rooftop construction help from her father, Paul Sylvester.  Click here to veiw pictures of the oven construction.  Built from locally sourced materials, including re-used street pavers, clay and sand from clients yards, beaver hewn logs from the Mississippi River's edge, and re-used tin roofing, this is an Earth-friendly permaculture landscape installation.

The pizza oven, patio, and roof-top are just a portion of the many changes that this back yard has undergone in one season.  A Chicken coop, compost bins, fruit trees, a quaking aspen grove, rain-barrels, and butterfly gardens are all newly in place in this sustainable landscape.

For those who are wondering, you too can have a pizza oven built in your backyard.  Click to view this page to learn more about our Backyard Pizza Oven services.  Or  Click here to schedule a home landscape consultation.

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Swallowtail butterflies

Here are some images of a butterfly enjoying the Joe Pye Weed in our gardens.  Gotta love a friendly garden visitor!

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Parker Residence: Natural Landscaping

The Parker residence in Edina, MN was once an empty lawn.  Teeming with birds, butterflies, bees, and beauty, this backyard now reflects natures abundant bounty.

Two rain-gardens, a stone patio and stone walkways, and large butterfly gardens that all define this healthy home landscape were all installed only 3 years ago.  As a testament to the power of good compost the trees, shrubs, and perennial habitat plants in this native landscape have matured at a  much appreciated rapid pace.

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Sorensen Residence: A Bee and Butterfly Haven

     The Sorensen residence in St. Paul has become a refuge and home for bees and butterflies.  Giving Tree     installed these beds in May 2012, these pictures taken in July show the strength of good compost in the soil.   Plants in these beds have grown with wild abandon and are already supporting a wide variety of bees, and butterflies.  The Sorensen's love their bees so much they made a blog to help us all follow the buzz!

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Gardens At Home

Even a professional gardener needs a place to sink his hands in the dirt and unwind at the end of the day.  Here's a few pictures of the front yard gardens at my Minneapolis home.

Click on any image in the gallery below to enlarge.

Compost Is Heating Up!

Organic gardening and farming are based on the notion that when we build our soil’s natural fertility through composting we strengthen our environment and grow the land’s capacity to provide us with health.

It’s a pretty good system when you think of it. We throw out scraps, and the scraps become our food. So simple, so elegant, so effective.

At Giving Tree Gardens, we’re such big fans of compost because we’ve seen it’s powerful results. Our gardens and lawns have all quickly filled in and grown with health and beauty using nothing but good healthy compost for fertility.

Last spring Giving Tree Gardens began working with farm partners to build Grow! Twin Cities Urban Farm. At this 12 acre city farm growers with various talents ranging from tomato and potato farming to bee keeping and mushrooming have come together to grow food for urban eaters. This farm space has been the perfect place for us to launch our composting operations.

With consultation from local composting experts Peter Kern, owner of Kern Landscape Resources, and Professor Tom Halbach, from the University of Minnesota, we designed an 85 feet long compost pile. Friends of the farm and Giving Tree Gardens employees set to work transforming our greenhouse and hauling in the compost pile’s base layers of wood chips and landscaping waste.

We now bring in 2 tons of Minneapolis’ finest coffee shop, vegetarian eatery, and beer brewery waste per week to compost inside our largest greenhouse. Composting takes place inside the greenhouse for two reasons. First, composting in the greenhouse means that our pile doesn’t stop cooking all year long.  Second, and more importantly, the fact that we’re heating our greenhouse without any petroleum products means a huge environmental win for everyone involved.

If you’ve purchased food, beer, or coffee from Peace Coffee, Caffetto Coffee Shop, Tao Foods, or Second Moon Coffee Shop, then you are contributing to healthy soils, and local food production at our Grow! Twin Cities Farm.

If you’d like to support more of our farming and composting efforts, there are great ways to get involved. You can sign up to volunteer, donate to the farm, or sign up to follow our newsletter.

Many thanks to all the hard working compost helpers!

Gardening At School, Growing Healthy Kids

Whenever a young person learns to garden, the future grows a little more green and healthy. When an entire school learns to garden together, sustainability sprouts in the imaginations of tomorrows community.  This spring, Giving Tree Gardens worked with the Anoka-Hennepin School District to teach some of the basics of Earth- friendly food gardening to students at two schools in the district.  We had so much fun working with students and staff that we’ve just got to share the good times with the rest of the world.

Imagine what our communities would look like today, if all of us as kids had the opportunity to learn to grow our own food at school.  Instead of learning to grow food, the daily school lunch is the most engaging and oft repeated lesson that our kids get about food.  What is that lesson?

It was an honor for us at Giving Tree to be invited to garden with the students at Mississippi Elementary and Northdale Middle School in Coon Rapids.  Composting, edible weeds, the importance of avoiding chemicals, soil preparation, seed planting, native plants, habitat creation, and companion planting were the subjects of 3 all day gardening classes.  School staff and teachers brought the students out in shifts.  Over 400 students were able to get their hands dirty digging in to learn how to grow healthy food and habitat.

At Mississippi Elementary we built on a theme that we had started last year when we extended the garden installation within the schools Nature Center to include 6 crescent moon shaped garden beds.  Every grade came out to plant, and each got their own garden bed to prepare and plant with different companion planting arrangements.  Within each bed we also planted one native butterfly attracting plant so that we made sure to grow habitat for our winged friends along the way.

At Northdale Middle school we worked with 7th and 8th grade students in the schools AVID program to plant a highly accessible veggie garden and two fruit trees right out the back door.  Plants were all arranged in companionship groupings, and both the apple and pear tree that were planted were given their best friend plants of dill and mint to grow by.  Some of the students were very impressive with their strong knowledge about organic vegetable gardening!

Both of these school projects were funded by SHIP grants (State Health Improvement Program) from the State of Minnesota Health Department.  These grants are designed to “help Minnesotans live longer, healthier lives.” Gardening for medicinal and edible plants as well as sustainable habitat development are among the most effective long term strategies we have available for increasing health in our communities.

Imagine how healthy our children would be if all of our schools had organic student led gardens to grow even half of the food the kids eat for lunch.  Thanks to the SHIP grants, and the imaginative staff in the Anoka-Hennepin Schools and school district, we have planted the seeds of healthy change in a couple of local schools.

Community Design Forum

Is your block club, church group, or office place ready to go green? In this time of shrinking budgets we need to recognize the assets in our communities and help them grow into a sustainable future! Community Design Forums are meetings where folks come together to create action plans for moving forward with changes that positively affect their community's environment. By sharing needs, knowledge, and ideas communities get to know the power within their ranks and discover ways to help grow their green ideas.

Facilitated by Giving Tree Gardens owner Russ Henry, these forums bring together his skills as a professional Earth-Friendly Landscaper and a volunteer Restorative Justice Facilitator. Russ sits down with consultation attendees and asks them to share their concerns, ideas, efforts, and knowledge with each other so that communities can not only draw from his experience in the garden and landscape, but more importantly, attendees learn about each other's skills and abilities.

Consultation and Garden Coaching

Giving Tree Gardens now offers our professional landscaping consulting services for all those do-it-yourself clients that would simply like a little advice.  Many of our clients love to garden themselves, but want to have a professional on their side.  In order to help folks get the most out of their consultation time, Russ Henry has designed the Healthy Yards, Healthy Lives Home Consultation!

From garden design and layout, to landscape installation methods, and landscaping maintenance routines, to back yard organic garden food production and promoting healthy ecosystems, this landscaping consultation is a one-stop shop for improving the quality of life on this planet one back yard organic garden at a time!

Maintenance

Giving Tree Gardens landscaping department offers year round garden and landscape maintenance services. Our landscaping maintenance crews are out maintaining our client's organic gardens and landscapes from the time the last snow melts in the spring till the ground freezes again in the fall.

We'll maintain your landscape through the winter months with our trusted Snow Removal Service.   Our landscape maintenance services include composting, weeding, perennial division, tree and shrub pruning, and mulching.  In addition our maintenance crews plant annuals in the spring and bulbs in the fall.  Giving Tree Gardens landscaping  maintenance crew makes sure your organic gardens grow more lovely with each passing season.

Garden Installation

Giving Tree Gardens professional landscape and garden installation service crew work closely with our clients and with our garden designer Russ Henry to install award winning organic gardens.

The landscape installation services team at Giving Tree Gardens aim to make as little negative impact on the land as they can while landscaping installations take place

We use hand tools whenever possible and we keep our foot traffic to a minimum.  Our organic gardens and landscapes are installed so that they will have all they need to grow healthy and full, and our organic garden installation services are designed around our clients needs and dreams.

Organic Landscape Design

As owner of Giving Tree Gardens, Russ Henry works closely with each of his Landscape Design clients to create organic gardens that fulfill the needs and desires of each client. Giving Tree Gardens designs and services are each individually crafted to create functional enchanting spaces. We take the time to get to know how our clients will use their outdoor spaces, so that we can design their gardens to enhance the livability and pleasure they find just outside their doors.  Giving Tree Gardens are designed to preserve nature, and provide all year-long beauty.   "We aim for 100% client satisfaction" explains Russ Henry, "I want my clients to love the work I do for them, so I pay close attention to what they want to find when they step into the landscape."

Video: Edible Landscapes, Food Justice, and more!

Gardening can make our urban areas healthier, safer, and more beautiful.  In this brief video, Russ Henry speaks out passionately in favor of making Minneapolis a model city for environmentally sound practices.

Local Links

Here you’ll find links to some of our business, non-profit, and community partners in growing a more beautiful and bountiful Twin Cities for ourselves and future generations.

Comgar Listserv: Gardeners Unite, Connect, Grow!

The Seed Newsletter Archives: All Your Favorite Garden Reading

Giving Tree Gardens YouTube!: Garden Videos

Yards To Gardens: Connecting Gardeners With Places to Plant

Friends School Plant Sale: Best Plant Selection In MN and a Great Cause

Landscape Alternatives: Great Resource for Native Plants

Outback Nursery: Great Resource for Native Plants

Kern Landscaping: Got Compost?

Applied Energy Innovations: Solar, Wind, Geothermal?

Midtown Farmers Market: Local, Fresh, Delicious!

Capitol Region Watershed District: St. Paul Rain Gardens

Diamond Stone Oriental Medicine: Your First Wealth Is Health

Sue Hensel Designs: Communicate, Change, Share

Minneapolis Rain Barrel: Decorative and Useful

Reddy Rents: Huge Selection of Hand Tools For Sale and Rent!

Diamond Stone: Oriental Medicine, real healing.

Public Recognition

Best Garden at a Business Award 2014

Giving Tree Gardens and Northbound Brewpub were honored to have been awarded the

best gardens at a business award from Metro Blooms in 2013

for our gardens on the 

Northbound Brewpub

 patio.  This patio surround garden is full of exciting garden amenities including native plantings, 12-foot tall brewers

hops

growing on vines, and

edible sweet potatoes

growing in

tropical flower boxes

.

Giving Tree Gardens is proud of this

nutrient cycling garden

at Northbound.  Northbound contracts with Giving Tree to

compost the brewing waste

they create such as barley and wild rice.  Giving Tree then returns this compost to the gardens in the spring to rejuvenate the ground.  This sustainable garden was envisioned together by the owners of Northbound Brewpub,

Jamie Robinson and Amy Johnson

and Giving Tree's Russ Henry.

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In 2007, Giving Tree Gardens and The Seward Co-op Grocery and Deli were honored with an award for

The Best Business Garden

in the city, from the

MetroBlooms

organization of Minneapolis.

Reprinted with permission from the Seward Community Cooperative publication

The Sprout

.

Satisfied Customers

Here's what a couple of our clients have to say: When I inherited my mother's garden, I inherited Russ Henry too.  What a lucky break for me!  Russ understood exactly what needed to be done to maintain my mother's gorgeous garden.  As I watched the garden through spring, into summer and then into fall, the garden changed and evolved. Thanks to Russ, there was always something new growing and blooming in different corners while the overall garden maintained a lush, almost bohemian feel.  Russ was a patient, encouraging teacher whenever I elected to participate in caring for the garden.  In fall, he gently put the garden to bed.  This spring, I look forward to his return and with him will come a rewarding garden where it will be a constant pleasure to spend time. — Natalie Elertson, Minneapolis Residential Client

I was thrilled at the results I got from Russ at Giving Tree Gardens. He's creative, and an impeccably professional landscaper. He knows gardening, and has always got a good idea for what to do with my garden. And not only that, but he's a whiz at creating beautiful patio spaces--his work and creativity allowed my family to enjoy our garden even more. Everyone who is looking for someone to help them figure out how to beautify and optimize their outdoor space should talk to Russ. You'll love the result. I certainly did! — Kieth Stacy, Residential Client

In the spring of 2005 Seward Co-op hired Russ Henry and Giving Tree Gardens to revamp our landscaping.  We wanted a blend of native and non native plants, culinary and medicinal herbs and most importantly we wanted maximum bloom time. The work done exceeded our expectations. The co-op went from lackluster landscaping to gorgeous gardens almost overnight. In both 2005 and 2006, Russ's work was recognized with City of Minneapolis Blooms Awards. In addition to his creative flare, Russ brings a willingness to work with a wide range of people to bring his work to fruition. He has worked with the Seward Peace Garden kids. He gave seasonal tours to co-op customers highlighting the blooms. He will be working with the co-op and our immediate neighbors as we plan the gardens at our new store at Riverside and Franklin.—Sean Doyle, General Manager, Seward Cooperative Grocery and Deli

Russ, at Giving Tree Gardens, planted the Seward Co-Op urban gardens 2 years ago and has lovingly maintained them since.  His stellar original design and hard work were rewarded with the "Minneapolis Blooms Awards" two years in a row.  Russ is a true "people person."  He takes the time to answer questions and chat with customers and the general public as he tends to the gardens and has put together several garden tours. He is a delight to work —Valerie Doying, Manager On Duty, Seward Cooperative Grocery and Deli