Great New Native Plant & Landscaping Book

Landscaping with Native Plants of Minnesota (Voyageur Press)
By Lynn Steiner

Nearly one hundred new gardening books are published in America each year, a majority of which, I’m afraid, are adequately redundant at best, and altogether unnecessary at worst. Does anyone need another book on garden feng shui, composting, or flower color combinations?

The small number of new books with merit tend to be regional, focusing on plants or procedures made vague by glossy, hardbound, national releases. In this camp you will find the recently released Landscaping with Native Plants of Minnesota (Voyageur Press) by Stillwater-based garden writer Lynn Steiner.

This book is the first to combine a field guide format with practical instruction about creative use of the plants and overall landscape design. Chapters 1 through 4 cover definition and benefits of native plants, an overview of Minnesota’s natural plant life, and comprehensive design and cultural information on placing and growing native plants in your yard.

The author wisely pushes no ulterior agenda. “I didn’t want the book to be limiting, to come across as useful only to people interested in landscaping entirely with natives, or to claim that this is the best way to go. These are simply interesting, useful plants—you can use two or five native perennials in your garden, you can add native shrubs to a small portion of your landscape,” says Steiner.

The Gallery of Gardens section (Chapter 5) is a brilliant inclusion, featuring lovely photographs and insightful commentary on residential native gardens and landscapes from Milwaukee to St. Paul to the western suburbs. In this section, Steiner—who also contributed all 325 color photos in the book—dispels once and for all the ghastly myth that native plants are colorless and drab.

The Plant Profile section, comprising the final two-thirds of the book, includes comprehensive information (plus Steiner’s stellar photos) on more than 600 native plant species, subspecies, and varieties of flowers, trees, shrubs, vines, evergreens, grasses, and ferns that have grown in Minnesota since the time before European settlement.

“Beginning gardeners can use the book to learn about a whole world of wonderful plants the gardening magazines don’t often tell you about,” says Steiner, “while more advanced gardeners can look at using natives as a kind of next step, a further fine-tuning of the craft.” With this beautifully written and photographed book, Steiner, the long-time former editor of the Minnesota State Horticultural Society’s Northern Gardner magazine, transforms readers of every stripe into native plant experts.

Best Website for Landscaping Help ( Minnesota)
GardenMinnesota.com

Every state in the union has a Nursery & Landscape Association, and Minnesota’s (MNLA) is one of the best.

Last year, they launched this valuable consumer site, allowing homeowners to view and select good landscapers operating in their area with the simple click of “Locate an Expert.”

You can also view award-winning landscapes, check out Plant of the Month, and access the MN Growing Calendar, with valuable tips on what to be doing in any given week in your garden. There’s also a click for invasive plant & pests alerts, general industry news and more. Check it out! www.gardenminnesota.com

Best Garden Sprayer
Chapin Multi-Use Sprayer

Saw this product recently at a trade show, and thought man, do I ever need a couple of those. What’s so great about this product is the size, a mere 48 ounces, perfect for about ninety-nine percent of the chemical spray jobs you have around the garden, where filling up and lugging around a one- or two-gallon pump sprayer is a waste.

The spokesperson from Chapin at the booth stressed the high quality and durability of their sprayers (they have a large line). Testing this sprayer, I can tell he was being flat honest. Just turning the spray nozzle you know you have a precision-made instrument in your hands. The spray pattern can be adjusted smoothly and flawlessly from a perfect mist (so fine you could use it to mist seedlings) to a straight stream, with all spray densities in between.

Founded in New York in 1884, Chapin has been making hand and compression sprayers since 1903, and were the first company to patent a hand sprayer, in 1902. These sprayers were made from brass. If you run into an old Chapin brass sprayer at a garage sale, nab it—they bring in a few bucks from collectors.

Chapin sells their sprayers all over the world, and if you walk in and buy Ace Hardware’s private label, 48-ounce sprayer, it’s made by Chapin and is the same as the one you see in the photograph.

Made in the USA —Chapin’s 700,000 square-foot manufacturing facility is in Batavia , New York. Check out their website, where you can purchase sprayers online: www.chapinmfg.com