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This month, we’ve talked with Tori Stolen of Queen Bee’z Lawn and Garden in Prior Lake about how plants can keep your commercial exterior inviting even after the frost hits.
Q: What are the best plants for our Minnesota winters?
A: Annual plants can’t survive our cold Minnesota winter, but luckily there’s a wide variety of perennials and shrubs for our zone. Evergreen shrubs are a great way to add winter interest to the landscape. The nice thing about evergreens is they keep their color in winter. The colors range from green, blue and yellow.
Q: What is the best way for a small business to stretch its budget but get the most visual impact?
A: The best way to make a visual impact in the winter time in my opinion is with spruce tip pots. If you have a creative side they are relatively easy to put together and it’s cheaper to do it yourself than to get pre-made arrangements. For an even stronger statement you can add different decorations to your pots; red is always a good color to draw the eye over.
Q: What design colors do you see trending this year?
A: This years winter trend seems to be going in a more natural direction. Its seems like the more earthy color palette is what people are going with the most. I see a lot of greens, tan/brown and off white. As far as spring or summer color trends for flowers, people are going a lot more funky than they have in the past. Dark colors with with an added pop of color are what our customers seem to prefer. For example, our best selling annual flower in the spring is black satin petunias.
Q: What would you do differently to enhance a property in winter than in fall?
A: During fall we like to enhance properties with orange pumpkins, funky pumpkins, Indian corn, straw bales and corn stalks. Along with fall flower containers that can contain grasses, ornamental kale, rudbeckia and mums. Since our winters are so cold plants are out of the question for us outside. So we like to do spruce tip pots with some added flair. Along with fresh wreaths and natural garland, the best part about these is the amazing evergreen smell that everyone associates with Christmas! We also love using birch sticks and logs to add a little bit of an extra woodsy feel.
Q: I’ve left my planting too late!! What’s the best way to plant after the ground has frozen?
A: You can add plants to your landscape until the ground is to frozen to get your shovel into. If fall slips away from you and you still have a few things to plant you can always group those plants that are still in containers together and bury them in with mulch. They should survive the winter that way; then they are ready to get planted in the spring.
Queen Bee’z can be found on the web at www.queenbeezgarden.com, and on Facebook and Instagram.
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