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Years: 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007,

Prairie Primer

Want a lower-maintenance landscape in time for summer?

One option is to go native. Native plants thrive naturally, requiring less water, chemicals and all-around baby sitting than non-native plants. With sustainability on many minds, it's no mystery why native plants have become a hot garden trend in recent years.

"People are tired of mowing, or want to reconnect with nature," said Evanne Hunt, spokeswoman for the Prairie Enthusiasts.

You can learn what's involved at "Planning a Prairie," a Feb. 25 workshop sponsored by two local chapters of the nonprofit. "People have a lot of questions about where ...
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New Rain Gardens Collect, Filter Runoff At Union Church

Two rain gardens have been installed this fall at Union Congregational Church, a United Church of Christ (UCC) in Elk River.

They will collect and filter runoff from the roof and the parking lot. Both gardens are planted with native plants and flowers like black-eyed Susan, butterfly weed and pale purple coneflower. “It’s a beautiful plan,” Andy Oman said of the garden plantings. Oman is a member of Union Church’s Green Team.

One of the rain gardens is in front of the church at 1118 Fourth St. The other is near the church parking lot at the corner ...
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Improving Water In Several Ways

Three new rain gardens at a Lino Lakes school, a collaborative effort of agencies and students, are filtering storm-water runoff and helping kids learn.

Students at Rice Lake Elementary in Lino Lakes have added a fourth "R" to the fall curriculum:

Rain garden.

Before summer vacation started in June, teachers and students at the K-5 school joined with folks from the Rice Creek Watershed District (RCWD) and the Anoka Conservation District and built three rain gardens on the school's property.

The school sits right next to Rice Lake. "It's a great location to do it," said ...
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First Rain Garden Of Its Kind Built In Shoreview

"I want my 2-year-old to be able to swim in the lakes," Shoreview mom says. By Nicholas Backus Staff Writer Published: Tuesday, August 2, 2011 11:40 AM CDT SHOREVIEW – Dawn Pape wants her 2-year-old to one day be able to swim in the lakes.

With more and more Twin Cities lakes ending up on impaired waters lists, and numerous city beaches being closed due to unsafe pollution levels, it's not a stretch to think area lakes might be too polluted, or too green with algae, to swim in one day. Last week, beachgoers in Qingdao, China were photographed ...
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Going Native

A Minnetonka horticulturist turns back the clock, restoring her suburban landscape to what it might have looked like 200 years ago, before lawn and buckthorn.

Location, location, location. Heather Holm is a horticulturist, not a real-estate agent. But that's her mantra when it comes to choosing plants for her Minnetonka landscape.

She plants only species that are native to her immediate area, taking cues from a woodland at a nearby city park, and consulting old survey documents and other resources.

"If you just buy a plant at a garden center, it's like putting a square plant in ...
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Blaine Demonstrates How Its Raingarden Grows

Blaine residents had a first-hand opportunity to see how a yard low spot can help the environment when they attended a rain garden open house Monday night.

Jim Hafner, Blaine’s stormwater manager, gets ready to replace a grate that covers a basin filter during Monday night’s rain garden open house at 12309 Goodhue St. N.E. The basin feeds a demonstration rain garden that’s located in a corner of Hafner’s front yard. Jim Hafner, Blaine’s stormwater manager, and Mitch Haustein, a water resource technician with the Anoka Conservation District, answered questions during the July 11 event.

The city’s demonstration ...
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She Heeds The Call Of The Wild

A close encounter with a colorful bloom inspired a woman, once "allergic to the outdoors," to try to catalog every plant species in Minnesota to protect them for future generations.

A little purple wildflower changed Katy Chayka's life.

The time was late summer a few years ago, and the place was a regional park near her home in New Brighton, where she was taking a walk. "A spot of color caught my eye. I thought, 'What a pretty flower.'"

She didn't know what it was, so she got a field guide. The flower turned out to be ...
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Blaine Raingarden Open House Is Monday July 11

Blaine residents will get a first-hand opportunity to see how a yard low spot can help the environment by attending a rain garden open house Monday, July 11.

Experts will be on hand from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the city’s demonstration rain garden at 12309 Goodhue St. N.E., said Jim Hafner, stormwater manager.

The Anoka Conservation District (ACD), a Ham Lake-based, non-regulatory county level subdivision of state government, is also participating in the event.

Rain gardens are simply a garden that is a slight depression, planted with native plants that grow well even if they are ...
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Raingarden Open House Set For July 11 In Blaine

The city of Blaine is providing residents with an opportunity to learn about the benefits of rain gardens and how to construct them.

According to Jim Hafner, stormwater manager for Blaine, a rain garden is a slight depression that is planted with native plants that grow well even if they are flooded for a day or two. They collect rainwater runoff that soaks into the ground, and they also provide landscaping that attracts birds and butterflies.

Hafner said rain gardens are considered a solution to the water quality problem, which begins with unwanted debris, trash and dirt collecting ...
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Goodbye To Grass

As the less-lawn trend takes root, a few gardeners are going all the way, eliminating turf grass entirely.

About a dozen years ago, Paul and Susan Damon of St. Paul did something radical: They deliberately killed half their lawn.

A few years later, they killed the rest of it.

Gradually, they've transformed their city lot into a small urban prairie, with more than 130 species of native plants. "We wanted to turn it into a haven for birds and butterflies," said Paul, a landscape architect. And they succeeded; their garden now attracts 75 to 80 species of ...
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Saving Creeks And Lakes, One Lawn At A Time

Updated: May 2, 2011 - 7:56 AM Some communities are trying to change the manicured-lawn mindset to reduce chemical runoff.

Michele Thibodeau and her husband Mike(not pictured) won a free green garden makeover from the watershed district in Minnesota. It's part of a massive cultural shift underway to end our love affair with the lawn in order to protect the water. Fertilizer and water are designed not to drain into the sewer system.

Last week, she gave a tour and listed some of the new native plants she'll see for the first time when they bloom this summer. ...
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Why Worry About Stormwater Management Anyway?

Crookston, Minn. — Stormwater is an all-inclusive term that refers to any water running off the land’s surface after a rainfall or snowmelt event. Our largest stormwater event is associated with the upcoming spring melt; and, as we prepare for flooding we can be thinking of new ways to manage our stormwater. Like most urban communities, Crookston’s stormwater is conveyed to ditches or storm drains and then into a storm sewer system that is discharged into the Red Lake River. This concept of conveying water from land to river using storm sewer systems has been the accepted management practice for ...
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How Does Your Rain Garden Grow

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Greening Your Garden

Star Tribune-Variety

Want to make your landscape more nature-friendly? Help is available at a new website, Landscape for Life (www.landscapeforlife. org). Developed by the U.S.Botanic Garden and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas, the site offers practical strategies for sustainable gardening, which requires less water and chemical fertilizers and provides habitat for wildlife and pollinators.

The site makes a compelling case for going green. Organized by garden element, such as "Soil," "Water" and "Plants," it compares the impact of conventional landscapes vs. sustainable landscapes. There are also tips on a variety of topics, ...
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The Accidental Advocate

With the publication of her fourth book, a local garden writer solidifies her support for growing native plants.

Lynn Steiner isn't what you'd call a native plant nut. She clearly prizes prairie plants, but the soft-spoken author is the master of the measured approach. Though she's been writing almost exclusively about natives since 2003, she's never gone in for the hard sell. She doesn't denigrate non-natives (which she refers to as cultivars or traditional landscape plants) or insist that a good garden is all native or nothing. Her new book, "Prairie Style Gardens" (Timber Press, $34.95), is a practical ...
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