(gentle music) - Some people have a real knack for landscape design.

When traveling, Tom and I will often comment on the beautiful yards we see.

He looks at the trees and shrubs and I look at the flowers, both annual and perennial.

A lovely landscape enhances the home and can even increase the property value up to 15%.

Today, we are going to visit a person who does such a great job of landscape design that our garden club visited her yard on a tour.

Come and see why we all enjoyed it so much.

- [Narrator] Funding for Prairie Yard and Garden is provided by Heartland Motor Company.

Providing service to Minnesota and the Dakotas for over 30 years.

In the heart of truck country, Heartland Motor Company, we have your best interest at heart.

Farmers Mutual Telephone Company and Federated Telephone Cooperative.

Proud to be powering Acira.

Pioneers in bringing state-of-the-art technology to our rural communities.

Mark and Margaret Yeakel Jolene in honor of Shalom Hill Farm, a nonprofit rural education retreat center in a beautiful prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota.

And by friends of Prairie Yard and Garden.

A community of supporters like you who engage in the long-term growth of the series.

To become a friend of Prairie Yard & Garden, visit pioneer.org/pyg.

(bright music) - Several years ago, we visited the lovely yard and prairie gardens built at Rita Kaiser's home in Herman, Minnesota.

She told me about her friend Nancy Larson, who also has an awesome yard right outside of town.

My garden club visited both yards and I agreed with Rita.

I called Nancy and asked if we could come so that our Prairie Yard & Garden viewers could see and enjoy her beautifully landscaped yard.

And she said yes.

Thanks so much, Nancy, for letting us come.

- Oh, you are very welcome, Mary.

- How did you get started gardening?

- I got started in gardening when I was in college.

I started out taking horticulture classes just on a whim and decided I really liked it and from there, it went to this.

I have a degree in horticulture from NDSU and I know you've had NDSU on Neil Holland before and he was one of my favorite instructors.

We sat many days talking about plants.

- [Mary] Did you work in the horticulture field after school too?

- [Nancy] I did not work per se in horticulture.

I did work at several nurseries, not really much more than that.

We moved to this location.

We built the house in '96, '97 and the gardens all started about 2000.

- [Mary] What was it like when you came here?

- [Nancy] When we moved out here, we would be standing right now in the middle of a bean field.

I started with the wall in 2000 and we started on the west end and we kind of from there worked our way to the east.

This wall was rock by rock, piece by piece, layer by layer.

It's held together by mortar that we mixed ourselves.

And of course, you read some books and you kinda figured out kind of how to do it and the further this way we got, the better we got.

And my kids decided if they seen another rocket would be none too soon.

And little did they know there were gonna be a lot more rocks in their future.

(laughs) We went and handpicked them out of the fields.

We have a lot of friends who are farmers and when I asked, "Can I check your rock pile," they said, "Have all you want."

So we did.

We picked a lot.

- [Mary] So then what made you decide to build the plants and put the plants in in front of the wall?

- [Nancy] Oh, I always had that envision when I started it, that it'd be a nice backdrop for perennials and stuff.

And that's what I've put in as a lot of perennials.

Anything I don't have to go back and redo every year.

And this is not my only wall.

I have in my other water feature in the back in a flower bed, I have another set of walls.

And that set of walls were built by my middle son who is in masonry.

His class had to do it as a project and every three students had to do a brick wall.

And once they were done and they were graded on it, he called and asked, "Mom, do you want these?

Because all we're going to do is take a sledgehammer after them and throw them in the rubbage pile."

So I said, "By all means, I will take them."

So I had a gentleman that went over with a semi trailer and we went over and picked him up and brought him home and I incorporated them into my flower bed.

We dug it out and we actually laid a foot and a half of river rock or pea rock underneath that they would sit on.

There's two of them who that have settled some, but for the most part, that has been really good and they have held up very well there.

- So how did you pick the plants that you use both at this wall and at the other wall?

- The mix perennial beds like this one, when I find something I like, I put it in and if it doesn't work there, I move it.

I move a lot of plants in my yard back and forth.

If they don't work in one spot or don't do well, they get moved to another flower bed and we try it there because I have found with gardening, gardening is trial and error.

It may not work in one spot, but it may work in another.

And that's kind of how I've picked the plants.

If I find a plant I like, I buy it and then find some place to put it, much to my husband's dismay.

'Cause I buy a lot of plants in the spring, I enjoy my plants.

- [Mary] I really like the edging.

Tell me about this.

- This is curving that we put in to help, for my husband to define my garden so it didn't get any bigger.

But otherwise, it helps define and helps to keep the grass out and stuff.

And I do try and mulch my beds to help with the moisture retention and also with the weeds because most of my flower beds, once they've been mulched, I usually do not water them very much.

It has to be an extremely dry summer like last summer for me to actually start pulling hoses out and watering the beds that have been mulched.

And it's a way to hold the mulch back in the grass, the other side.

And that's why I use the edging.

- [Mary] So then how do you come up with the artwork that's displayed here in your bed?

- [Nancy] That's another, like my plants, if I find it and it's not too expensive, I will buy it and I will find a place for it.

Some of the pieces, like the boy and the girl sitting on the wall, those came from Arizona, they were my mother's and she did not have a spot for them so she told me to take them.

So we did.

And there's other pieces, I've got a little girl with a watering can, she came from Arizona as well.

And in one of the hosta beds, I have a little boy with Alberta on his knee and he came from Arizona.

They cannot sit out during the winter because the cement pieces that they used on there are not made of the same cement we have up here.

They will disintegrate over a couple of winters up here because of the freezing.

So they get put in and every spring, they get sprayed down with a cement sealer.

- I see that you have some beautiful water features.

Can we see those too?

- Yes, you can.

(gentle music) - When and how did you start building your pond?

- Well this pond and several others, Mary, I have another pond and I have fountains.

This pond was the first pond we put in and as you can see, it has many rocks and my kids said the same thing, "More rocks, mom?"

And it was piece by piece and this too, read a few books, kind of got an idea and then just kinda did it.

And this one, I do not have problems with LJ growth because I believe it because it's in the shade.

And this one is probably 20 years old and I've only ever had to treat it once for LJ.

Now my other ponds, the one that's in the sun.

Full sun all day long.

I usually treat every four weeks for LJ because I usually have LJ growing.

And in the fountain that I have, I was told by a young man who works with fountains that just a cap full of bleach put in the water will take care of any LJ growth and it does.

So I do not have any LJ growth in the fountain.

We just have to deal with all of the cottonwood seeds.

- [Mary] What kind of liner did you use for your pond?

- [Nancy] It is a 45 mil rubber liner and that will take care of anything that might step down in it, whether it be a deer, a dog, whatever.

'Cause most of the time, they will puncture the liners and stuff.

Though even with the 45 mil liner, I have had deer in the very big pond that have gone in and have ended up ripping it.

So then I've had to repair the liners and there's kits to repair it and it works out fine.

I don't have any leaks with it.

- [Mary] Do you have to add more water throughout the summer from evaporation?

- [Nancy] Yes I do.

These are recirculating ponds, both of them, the big one and the small one.

This one has to be added by a hose.

The big pond, when we built our house, we found a sand point at five feet where we were gonna build it and we had to move the site and I told them drop down a tile.

And I said we'll put a cover on it 'cause I think someday I'll use that and we've got a pump in there.

So when I need to add water to the pond, the big pond, I just turn the pump on there and I add fresh ground water to it and that pretty well sustains it.

- [Mary] You have so many trees.

How do you keep your pond clean?

- [Nancy] In the fall, they've both got skimmers.

And in the fall, you have to check the skimmer in the morning and in the evening and sometimes during the day if we've had a lot of wind and the leaves are coming down and then when it really drops and all the leaves are coming down, we just shut them down for the winter.

- [Mary] How did you design the slope of your pond and water features?

- [Nancy] The big pond has a natural slope, which is why there's kind of a meandering stream down to it.

This one we kind of built a little bit up.

This was a natural for the most part and where the bio falls, we had to build and cover it.

So that's why there is a mound back here.

Otherwise, the rest of them, it's all natural.

- [Mary] So what do you do in the winter time to get ready for winter with all of your water features?

- [Nancy] With the small one, we drain completely down.

We empty it completely, pull the pumps and put them in the garage.

The big one, I drain down to about half and then pull the fountain and pull the pumps and then just leave it because inevitably, it will fill up again with snow melt in the spring.

And then we drain in the spring, we drain them all completely down again.

We clean out all the mud and muck and then we refill them.

- So do you have critters that like to come and take a drink?

- (laughs) Name them.

We've got them.

Right now, we've got a residential skunk.

We cannot seem to catch him and he shows up every evening.

We have deer, we have raccoons, we have squirrels, rabbits, name them, we've got them.

And every once in while, we have an occasional buffalo show up.

We had one show up a few years back, he had gotten away from a farmer and we found him in the yard one morning and we've had a peacock, which we don't know where he came from but he showed up one day.

So we never know what we're gonna see when we get up in the morning.

- Nancy, with your water features, do you have to worry about mosquitoes - In the fountains and in the ponds, no, because the water is actively running and as it runs they like still water.

We have plenty of mosquitoes because we have plenty of lakes and slews that surround us.

So our mosquitoes don't necessarily come from here, but they do come from the slews and everything.

- Well this is a beautiful area.

What all plants do you have around this fountain area?

- Well right now, it's hostage as you can see, but in the spring, it's all tulips.

We, I under plant with tulips and then in the spring, it's tulips.

And then as the tulips die back, the hospice come up and they cover the tulip leaves and stuff as they're dying back.

So we have kind of a transition period there where I do have something blooming all the time.

- [Mary] Wow, this is awesome.

And I see that you have lots of flowers.

Can we go see those two?

- [Nancy] We sure can.

(playful music) - I have a question.

I would like to plant trees as a windbreak.

What varieties would you recommend?

- Sure, yeah.

So if you need to plant a windbreak on your property, that probably means that you live somewhere in Greater Minnesota where we have a lot of wind.

Where I work, we have a lot of wind too.

So a windbreak can help you protect your property and your crops against a lot of wind damage.

And it can also just create a really nice environment for your yard.

So when you do a windbreak, you know, the mistake that we see a lot of folks make is planting all of the same species all across your windbreak.

What you really wanna do is pick several different species and plant them together.

Because what happens is if a disease comes through or if we have a really bad drought or flood that knocks out one species of your trees, you need to make sure that you've got other species there to help fill in those spaces and make sure you still have a functional windbreak.

The University of Minnesota Extension has a lot of great resources on choosing trees for your windbreak and designing a windbreak.

And they always recommend planting a number of different species.

I'm just gonna recommend two today.

So you'll wanna have at least one deciduous species and at least one evergreen species, but hopefully several of each.

So for evergreens, there's a number of native pines, spruces and cedars that you could choose from.

White pine is a really nice choice.

It's expected to be resilient as our climate keeps changing and getting more challenging.

For deciduous trees, there's a lot of options you can choose from.

One is black walnut.

If it's in your windbreak, you're not too worried about the nuts falling on the ground.

So that's a nice place to put a black walnut tree.

So the takeaway is when you're thinking about doing a windbreak, you're still planting in rows.

But make sure you get a diversity of hardy tree species and you're gonna have a really good windbreak that's gonna protect your property.

- [Narrator] Ask the Arboretum Experts has been brought to you by the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska, dedicated to welcoming, informing, and inspiring all through outstanding displays, protected natural areas, horticultural research, and education.

- We just come from the shade gardens, Mary, and these are two of my sun gardens and as you can tell, it's very warm out here.

So they do do quite well.

I do have a variegated yucca right here that does very well.

And I have a plain yucca that just finished blooming in the other bed.

And I do use different flowers for transitioning.

I have actually daffodils in here that come up in the spring and then they die back.

And about that time the irises and the false indigo, they start to bloom and as they die back, as you can see the salvias and the daylilies and the monardas.

And the coneflowers, they all start to bloom as well.

So I always have constant color in the whole flower bed.

And that kind of is nice because you have color all summer.

- [Mary] Well then, you have different textures in here too.

What is that plant right there?

- [Nancy] It is called a teddy bear pine.

And that is what I found out in North Dakota.

It's a very slow growing and it always stays that deep green and it's been a fun plant to have.

And then up here, I have what is called a Turkish burning bush and it turns red just like a burning bush does in the fall and it does bloom as well.

And the flower heads are almost like little pockets.

They're little four-sided pockets and when they open, they're pink.

But the bad thing about that one is it does reseed out so you have to be on the watch for it.

- [Mary] I was going to ask what that plant was.

It's so unusual.

- [Nancy] And I always look for plants that are different, unusual that I don't usually see around here.

'Cause most people stay with the standard and they're a little bit afraid to step out of that comfort zone.

You have to try to see if it'll grow or not grow.

And most of the time, it will.

- [Mary] Where do you find unusual plants like this?

- [Nancy] When we go someplace and there's a nursery, I tell my husband, "Oh we gotta stop, we gotta stop."

You never know what you might find.

And I found this one in Fargo at a nursery and that is the same with a lot of my hardscape, any of the statues, any of the wind catchers, we find them in different places that we stop at.

And if I find one I like and it's reasonably priced, I will pick it up because it adds so much to the yard, to the flower beds and we enjoy them.

- So you mentioned plants that you like for spring and for the summer.

How about the fall?

- For the fall, I've got the autumn joy sedums that are always very popular.

I have an obedient plant that usually is quite a bit larger than what it is now and the butterflies and the bees love them in September and October.

But I don't know if it's going to get of size this year.

The other thing, if you cut your salvias back, now this has been cut back once already this summer and it is re-blooming again.

And if we cut it back again, as long as it doesn't get too far into September, it will bloom a third time.

I have the chrysanthemums that are blooming during the Septembers and the Octobers and stuff but this year's a little bit different.

I have a lot of chrysanthemums that are blooming now, which is very unusual 'cause chrysanthemums aren't supposed to bloom until closer to September.

And this one, Mary, is a salvia and it is called azure snow and it is a bicolor and we do get three waves of bloom a summer out of it.

- Nancy, one of the things that I notice is that you do a fabulous job of incorporating different heights of plants.

- Yes, I do like to put like grasses in because they do give some height.

The Karl Foerster grass is a great one because that one I will leave up until spring and then I will cut it back and I'll have winter interest.

It gives nice movement in the wind and then some of the shrubs and stuff also they give different heights and kind of gives a little variation to the flower beds.

- [Mary] Well and really the texture too.

I see kind of a blue evergreen back there.

- And that is a globe blue spruce.

They don't say small like they say they're going to, but it has added a lot to the flower beds too.

And there too, when those get to be a certain height, a lot of the plants have to be moved from them because they get too big.

So then the plants get moved out and something else gets planted.

And I also incorporate other plants that are unusual for this area.

I do have a prickly pear cactus as well in my flower bed and it does quite well.

It bloomed quite well this year.

And eventually as it gets bigger, you can take the blossoms from that and make prickly pear jelly.

- [Mary] So do you have to dig that out and take it in in the winter?

- [Nancy] Nope, it over went winter's right there.

- [Mary] I see a plant over there that has a most unusual top.

What is that?

- [Nancy] That is a globemaster allium and those are the spent blossoms.

They are a spring bloomer and they have just dried down to that point.

And those are the big ones.

And then I've got a smaller one just in front of us that is millennium and they are just blooming now.

And Mary, this is another sunbed I have that is pollinator-friendly.

I have lots of plants that the bees, the butterflies and the hummingbirds all like, and the mandara is a very big popular one.

I have butterfly weed, I have lavender.

We talk about microclimates and lavender is a good microclimate plant because lavender is not supposed to over winter here because it's a zone five plant.

Microclimates are where you take and produce a smaller climate within the rest of the climate.

We are a zone four and lavender is a zone five.

But because of the protection in the winter with the trees, it produces a warmer spot.

So this will over winter here.

And there's many other plants that you can do if you've got protection, whether that means the mulch also helps the roots, the trees cut the wind, they will over winter, and you just have to try them.

- [Mary] So you can sometimes experiment in addition to what's on the labels?

- Yes you can.

And there's many things that you can, I have got a Japanese maple that is growing here that is a zone five.

It is living here and it's doing quite well.

I've also got a red bud that does quite well here as well.

And they are zone five plants.

- [Mary] Well there's been some people that I won't mention the names who've tried lavender and haven't had good luck at all.

So you definitely have.

- Yes.

- The microclimate.

- [Nancy] Yep.

- So what are some of the other plants that you have for the hummingbirds too?

- The hummingbirds, like anything with a tube, the monarda is a great one.

They also like that hosta flowers because the flowers on the hostas are tube.

So I always suggest people not cut the flowers off until after they're done looming because the hummingbirds absolutely love those flowers.

Snapdragons as an annual, is another one that's very good because they like that type of a flower.

Now they will also go to the daisies, they will also go to the black-eyed Susan, Rudbeckias.

The daylilies, you'll find them there.

Anything that has kind of a throat, they will go to.

- So do you have very many annuals in the ground too?

- No, I do not.

I don't find for me, because I don't do a lot of watering, I do better with them in pots because it makes me go out and water them.

But in the ground, no I do not because I've got so many perennials.

I just don't put many annuals in the ground because there's really not a whole lot of room.

I do a lot in planters, like the ones behind us and they do quite well in planters, then I can make sure they get the right fertilizer and everything.

And so I do my annuals in pots.

- [Mary] I can see the hanging baskets from here and they're absolutely gorgeous.

What do you all have in those pots?

- [Nancy] They are red and white geraniums.

It's called silver falls.

It's a draper.

And that's all that's in them.

And then all you have to do is snap off the old blossoms when they're done and they come again.

They are an easy annual to have.

- [Mary] So do you cut off the blooms or do you break off the blooms?

- [Nancy] I break off the blooms.

They snap off quite easily and they do quite well.

I find that if you leave a little bit of the stem from the flower, they don't seem to send out another flower very fast.

They will eventually, but not as fast as you snap it off.

- [Mary] What do you use to keep your baskets looking so beautiful?

- [Nancy] I use a water soluble fertilizer that I mix in with the water when I water them.

I happen to use miracle grow and it has done very well for me.

I have lots of blooms all summer long with the annuals.

- [Mary] a How often do you fertilize?

- [Nancy] I fertilize my baskets and my flowers probably once every four weeks and that seems to be more than enough to keep them in full bloom.

- [Mary] Okay.

So do you do any fertilizing with your perennials at all?

- [Nancy] No, I do not actually.

I use a premium in the spring for the weeds on top of the mulch and stuff to help that.

But otherwise, no I do not fertilize it and I do not water them.

They kind of are on their own unless we have an extremely dry summer, then I might pull the hoses out and start in start watering.

- Now I know this is gonna be a hard question, but what are some of your favorite plants?

- Some of my favorite plants, one has to be the weeping mulberry that's up in by one of the ponds.

In the spring, It gets completely cut back and I mean completely.

And by the end of the summer, the branches are laying on the ground and it's blowing in the wind and it looks like a shaggy man with hair.

Another one is a cinnamon curl birch.

That was an introduction from (indistinct).

And I have one of those and that one is a real nice, it isn't a tall tree, it's actually quite short, but the deer love that one.

So that does need to be caged up as soon as mid-September starts.

One of my other ones is probably the piccolo balsam fir.

That one is a nice little plant.

And that one there too is an actual zone five plant that I have been able to grow here too.

So those are probably what some of my favorites right there.

- [Mary] Nancy, how did you get your hands on a cinnamon curls birch?

- [Nancy] Actually I found one up in Fargo at Cheyenne Nurseries or Gardens that Neil had established and I found it up there.

I bought it from him.

- [Mary] Well do you have any plans for the future at all with all your beds?

- [Nancy] Oh, there's always room for more beds.

(laughs) Probably just kinda maintaining where I'm at.

I'm not getting any younger.

I able to maintain, for the most part, the beds I have.

And I think that's more than plenty to keep clean and good, so.

- [Mary] Well I saw a greenhouse when we drove in.

When did that come here?

- [Nancy] That came in this spring.

We found one and we decided to go ahead and purchase it.

And I have some work to do with it before I can actually start annuals and perennials in the spring in it.

But I look forward to working in it.

Right now, I've got a lot of my cactus and succulents that I had in the house.

I have them in there and the warmth is actually pushing them into bloom, which is kinda nice 'cause some of them have never bloomed since I've had them.

So that's kind of fun to have.

- Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful place with us.

- Oh, you are so welcome.

And come back anytime 'cause I'd love to talk flowers and gardening.

- [Narrator] Funding for Prairie Yard and Garden is provided by Heartland Motor Company.

Providing service to Minnesota and the Dakotas for over 30 years.

In the heart of truck country, Heartland Motor Company, we have your best interest at heart.

Farmers Mutual Telephone Company and Federated Telephone Cooperative.

Proud to be powering Acira.

Pioneers in bringing state-of-the-art technology to our rural communities.

Mark and Margaret Yeakel Jolene in honor of Shalom Hill Farm, a nonprofit rural education retreat center in a beautiful prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota.

And by friends of Prairie Yard and Garden.

A community of supporters like you who engage in the long-term growth of the series.

To become a friend of Prairie Yard & Garden, visit pioneer.org/pyg.

(bright music)