By Diana Pierce | July 15, 2026 Site #4 on the Minnesota Water Garden Society Tour 2026,Home of Mike & Judy, Shoreview, MN. Photo: Owner Mike If you have ever stood at a garden pond, watched a koi glide under a lily pad, and thought, that must take a small miracle to maintain, this newsletter is for you. In just ten days, the Minnesota Water Garden Society (MWGS) opens the gates to backyards from Lino Lakes to Woodbury for its annual pond tour, and I got a preview this week

By Diana Pierce | July 8, 2026 Diana’s patio in mid-July. Photo: Diana Pierce It is mid-July, and my morning routine looks like this: I walk out the patio door, coffee in hand, and stick a finger down into the soil of the nearest pot. We’ve had rain on and off and then heat, and the container is already sucked dry. Summer in Minnesota does not wait for anyone. This is the season when gardens shift from promise to performance. It is also the season when trouble sneaks in. Heat

By Diana Pierce | June 24, 2026 Minnesota Hosta Society National Display Garden, Smith Coffee Shop and Cafe, Eden Prairie. Savory’s Gardens is one of 22 contributing nurseries. Photo: Diana Pierce Are you like me? There’s more to hostas than I ever realized. Tough, reliable, green. They fill the spots where nothing else will grow. Done. Or so I thought. Dennis Savory would like a word. Dennis is the second-generation owner of Savory’s Gardens in Minnesota, one of the country’

By Diana Pierce | June 17, 2026 Joe Axberg on his tractor with his daughter. Photo: Joe Axberg It’s almost Father’s Day, and as I putter about in the soil of my containers, I find myself hearing my Dad’s voice. It turns out I’m not the only one. Meet Joe Axberg, husband of my good friend Pam Stegora Axberg. Bloom With Me readers may remember Pam from last September’s Sunhat Edition, where she appeared in her garden in overalls and her Minnesota Twins baseball cap. Joe and I b

By Diana Pierce | June 9, 2026 Group of young children leaning in to examine Garden in a Box beds. Photo: Minnesota Horticultural Society Do you remember the first time you grew something? That specific moment when you checked on a seed you had pushed into the dirt days before, and there it was. Something alive. Something you made happen. Look at the faces in that photo above. That is exactly the moment. Anna Marhefke has built her work around recreating that moment for kids.

But There’s Still Good News. By Diana Pierce | June 3, 2026 Diana with “Angelic Diana” courtesy of Becky Swenson I was already looking forward to going back. So when Swenson Gardens announced they wouldn’t be opening their fields for Peony Days this year, I called Becky Swenson to find out why. Before I share that story, a quick note for anyone looking for peonies this weekend: The Minnesota Peony Society Show is at Bachman’s on Lyndale, June 6 and 7. And it’s free. There’s m

By Diana Pierce | May 27, 2026 Plants waiting for a container. Photo: Diana Pierce I’ll confess: I’ve been known to spot a pre-planted pot at the garden center, pick it up, and consider my container to-do list... “done.” Not this year. This year I wanted to push myself. I wanted new plants for sun and shade, combinations I hadn’t tried, containers built from scratch. I’m not a beginner, but I had plenty to learn. So after planting my entryway with shade plants and loading up

By Diana Pierce | May 20, 2026 When Mary Lahr Schier tells you it’s time to plant, you plant. When she tells you to wait, you wait. And when she says you need tools? You get them. Remember the old E.F. Hutton ads? When Mary talks, gardeners listen. The longtime editor of Northern Gardener magazine and author of The Northern Gardener: From Apples to Zinnias (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2017), she has spent decades helping gardeners navigate the particular joys and frus

What To Know Before You Go | By Diana Pierce | May 13, 2026 | Garden wagons lined up, waiting for plants. Photo: Diana Pierce Every spring in Minnesota, garden season shifts from dreaming to doing. It happens fast. One weekend the ground is still cold. The next, plant sales are opening across the Twin Cities with school fundraisers, Master Gardener events, specialty sales stocked with tomatoes, native prairie plants, and things you’ve never heard of but can’t leave without. S

By Diana Pierce | May 06, 2026 Plastic wrapped plants. Photo: Diana Pierce I visited a big box garden center recently and stopped cold. The shelves in the back of the garden area were jam-packed with plants, still in their shipping wraps. An employee told me more were arriving every day. Here’s what most shoppers don’t know: those plants were grown in warm-climate greenhouses and shipped north on a corporate timetable — not a Minnesota one. They’ve already been stressed by th

What Belinda Jensen Says Gardeners Get Wrong Every Year By Diana Pierce | April 29, 2026 Belinda Jensen and Bobby Jensen, a shot from "Grow with KARE." Photo: KARE-TV Some people do their job. Belinda Jensen stays to plant the flowers. You may know the resume: KARE 11 intern in 1989, the same station she had dreamed about since interviewing meteorologist Paul Douglas for a 10th grade term paper. Full-time in 1993. Chief meteorologist in 2005. And on Saturday, May 2nd, she wil

Not So Fast. By Diana Pierce | April 22, 2026 Spider plant at garden center. Photo: Diana Pierce Do you move your indoor plants outside? I never have. But I just learned from the University of Minnesota Extension that it might be one of the easiest ways to help them thrive. I’ve also been hearing from several of you recently: is it time to repot, refresh the soil, maybe move up a pot size? You’re already thinking about the season ahead, and that instinct is right on target. W

A Chat with Rhonda Fleming Hayes By Diana Pierce | April 15, 2026 If you’ve ever looked out at your garden and thought, “I just can’t keep up like I used to,” you’re not alone. However, you’re not done either. You have options. That’s the uplifting message at the heart of a new book by Minneapolis garden writer and photographer Rhonda Fleming Hayes. Rhonda Fleming Hayes is a Minneapolis-based garden writer, photographer, and author of Pollinator Friendly Gardening . Her new b

Plants That Hold a People Together By Diana Pierce | April 8, 2026 May Lee with her daughters, Mhonpaj and Zongxee Lee. One generation holds the knowledge. The next is carrying it forward—in the field, at the market, and now on the page. Photo: Lindsey Miller The first time Zongxee Lee lost a plant teacher, she realized too late that the knowledge had never been written down. It was 2016, and two grandmothers had passed away in the same period, each of them carrying decades o

Are you grabbing the wrong bag? Diana Pierce | April 1, 2026 Three very different products. Left: Bachman’s Garden Soil, for planting beds and in-ground use. Center: Espoma Organic Potting Mix, the right choice for containers. Right: Bachman’s Potting Soil, formulated for containers despite the confusing name. The labels tell the story. Photo: Diana Pierce I’ll be honest. I’ve stood in the garden center aisle, staring at a wall of bags, and grabbed whatever looked right. Pot

Plus: Why you need to stop filling the bottom of your pots with rocks By Diana Pierce | March 25th, 2026 Colorful pots waiting for your plants at a garden center. Photo: Diana Pierce Some of us are still waiting to start a few seeds indoors. Others are still waiting for the snow to melt before we can even begin to envision what this year’s garden might look like. And then there are container gardeners like me, staring at last season’s empty pots and wondering: what can I do d

Meet Minnesota's Most Mysterious Orchid. By Diana Pierce | March 18th, 2026 Photographed in a University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum lab. This is possibly one of the first studio portraits ever made of this federally endangered species. Photo: Diana Pierce Something rare happened recently inside a University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum laboratory. A Western Prairie Fringed Orchid bloomed. That may not sound like breaking news. But for David Remucal, PhD, Delores E.

When containers are empty, the possibilities are endless. By Diana Pierce | March 11, 2026 Hosta shoot or “nose.” Photo: Diana Pierce I did a double take this weekend. That tiny hosta shoot (or “nose”) next to my front door, maybe a quarter to a half inch tall, was already pushing through the rock bed and snow. I wasn’t expecting to see it. But in my recent conversation with Hennepin County Master Gardener Theresa Rooney, she says go look now — right now — and you just might

Starting Seeds the Minnesota Way By Diana Pierce | March 4th, 2026 Seed tray waiting to be planted. Photo: Laura Irish-Hanson My news feeds are full of them right now. Seed starting guides. Gorgeous photos of seedlings under grow lights . “Start these 10 vegetables today!” I scroll past and think: not yet. Not yet. Our last frost dates don’t care about the calendar on our phone or what’s working in Georgia right now. Then the next headline catches me. “You should have started

The Smell of Soil is Nature’s Medicine By Diana Pierce | February 25, 2026 Shallow Dish Terrarium, Heidi’s GrowHaus. Photo: Diana Pierce There’s something quietly rebellious about growing things in February. Outside, the ground is frozen and the forecast is stubbornly wintry. But inside Heidi’s GrowHaus, Owner Heidi Heiland is inviting you to dig in anyway — literally. Her upcoming terrarium workshop is part hands-on class, part creative experience, and part midwinter therapy