There are some spectacular private gardens around the Twin Cities. We discover several each year in our Beautiful Gardens contest. From October to April, we'll bring you into one Beautiful Garden a month.
It took a pair of Dellwood gardeners years of hard work to transform their suburban lot into a wildlife sanctuary, with restored wetlands surrounding two ponds. Now it's a paradise of blooms and habitat — and one of our Beautiful Gardens winners.
When a hands-on couple decided to build a new home on their Medford farmstead, they dug up their plants and rebuilt the garden, too. "Hundreds of plants … hostas … daylilies. Any perennial I had, I moved," Cyndi Maas said.
The ingredients for the homemade hors d'oeuvres and desserts at a Northfield couple's recent cocktail party were locally sourced — harvested from their vegetable beds, which sit on a picturesque hilltop with a panoramic view overlooking the Cannon River.
Gardeners Dan and Nancy Engebretson regarded an unfinished, weed-infested walking path as an opportunity, not an eyesore. So they planted what has become a mini-arboretum that draws people from the neighborhood.
A Minneapolis couple didn't let a compact city yard stop them from creating a fanciful landscape of waterfalls, shade and sun beds, and even a hobbit house.
One garden was not enough for Barb and Charlie Green of Edina. But unlike some gardeners who expand to create more of the same, the Greens are always game to try something different.
St. Paul's Highland Park neighborhood is a long way from the French countryside. But Eileen and Bill Troxel have managed to create a little slice of Provence in their back yard.
Starting with a blank slate 15 years ago, Diane Erdmann crafted spaces that fit in with nature – and the neighborhood. She calls her sloping south Minneapolis back yard "a mix of architecture and 'let it happen,' " with volunteer plants strewn throughout.