(bright music) - Whenever Tom and I visit the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, we just have to make a stop at our favorite place.

The Japanese garden.

We love to sit and soak in the peace and serenity at that garden.

Last year, I got an email invitation along with a YouTube clip from a couple in Coon Rapids to come see their yard.

After seeing the beauty and serenity, I contacted them and told them we were on the way.

Come along, as we all go for a visit to this special place.

- [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.

Farmer's 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 Yackel-Juleen 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 and Garden, visit pioneer.org/pyg.

(bright music) - I don't know about you, but it seems like we are always really busy.

Work, children's activities and community events seem to have us on the go all the time.

Maybe that's why it is so great to see the increased visitors to our city and state parks and other outdoor areas.

People need a place to slow down and enjoy getting back to nature.

You might say that Tim and Linda Johnson have a park right in their yard, and they've agreed to share it with all of us.

Thanks so much for letting us come.

- Thank you for coming.

- Tim, how long have you lived here at this location?

- We've been here almost 10 years this fall.

- What was it like when you came?

- When we moved in, it was pretty much bare except for the big trees and the lilac bushes.

And even the grass was a little sparse back here.

- How did you start?

- Well, I went down to the hill here and it just sloped down 30 feet.

And I thought to myself, "That doesn't look very safe."

So I decided to make a sunken patio there, and dug out half of the hill and put it on the other half and put up the railings and did that the first fall that we were here.

- [Mary] Did you get help to design all of this?

- [Tim] No, I pretty much dreamed it up and then asked Linda, "How does this look?"

And she helps with a lot of the decorating type of the design and I'm more the builder and the master planner.

Well, we wanted to make an oasis that was just a nice retreat and some place that was just a garden paradise, basically.

Wanted a waterfall, for example, because we've had those in previous locations.

And I had to figure out how to make it run uphill because the hill sloped away from the house.

And of course you want to see it from the house.

So I had to build up the back and created the waterfall and then I've always liked the elements of Japanese, Asian.

And so it became the Japanese garden, we call it.

So it's just been a little at a time every year.

- [Mary] Did you add the fencing and the dividers to enhance the yard or to divide it?

- [Tim] It creates a backdrop for everything.

So it really helps to help with your design, but it also keeps the deer out and some privacy, of course.

So the, instead of just a six foot high fence, I added a lot of the lattice work on top of a shorter fence and built it up that way.

- How many different areas have you created in the yard?

- Well, it's hard to determine what you count as an area, but as far as areas of interest, there's at least 20.

And people might say, "Well, that's a little much," but we really like to have something to look at everywhere you look.

Well, I made a lot of places to sit, which is really nice when you're working, because then you can sit and rest and think about these areas.

So I sit on benches and stare at a certain area and decide, "Well, what does that need?"

- [Mary] What do you use for the focal points in the different areas?

- [Tim] Well, we've collected a lot of statues over the years.

That's Linda's favorite hobby is collecting statues.

So almost every area either has a fountain or a statue as kind of the focal point of the area.

- [Mary] Tim, do you think that it would be possible to visit with Linda about her love of statues and the fountains?

- That would be great because she is the one who really loves the statues.

Not that I don't, but that's one of her favorite things.

(gentle guitar music) - [Mary] Every fall in Minnesota, signals the arrival of great apple varieties.

But did you know, we have many delicious early season apples ready by mid August?

First kiss, state fair and zestar are just three early season varieties developed at the University of Minnesota.

First kiss is known for its bright color and juicy insides.

State fair is tart, which makes it great for pies and other pastries.

Zestar is perfect for people who love apples with a delicious crunch.

All three varieties are just perfect for a summer or early fall day.

Of course our beloved honey crisp apple is also from the university, but that's not ready until September.

In the meantime, why not visit a local orchard or farmer's market to find out what early season apples are available?

While Minnesota is known for its walleye and sweetcorn, our apples should also be a point of pride.

- Well, there's a few reasons for that.

Number one, most of the apples we grow here are bred by the University of Minnesota.

And so they're bred for our climate, which is very important to us because it gets very cold here in the winter.

Apples develop properly in our climate, our cool nights in the fall, gives them the color, the flavors.

We take that tree and move it to Washington and they just don't develop the same.

My favorite Minnesota apple has to be the sweet tango.

It's a wonderful apple.

It's a cross of honey crisp and zestar.

It gets its wonderful texture from the honey crisp and the flavor of a zestar in there, just, they're fantastic.

It's also our top seller here as well.

- For more information on Minnesota apples and all the delicious crops grown in our state, go to minnesotagrown.com.

Linda, how many statues do you have in this yard?

- How many statues?

Well, I think we've counted and we have probably about 40.

We've been collecting for years and years.

If I see something that looks like it needs to be in my yard, okay, I have to have it.

Especially fairies and angels.

They're my very favorite statues.

Every statue that's been placed in this yard has been very thought out.

I look for statues that are beautiful and bring joy and peace and a very calm tranquility to the gardens, because each section of the garden has a different theme.

As you'll see, we have different venues, many different venues, and they are all introduced with different statues, different plants that will help to express what we want into that area.

- Where do you find them all?

- Well, mostly online.

I've bought a lot online.

We have bought them at garden stores in the past.

We've been married 46 years, so we've had a lot of collecting of statues and beautiful things for the yard.

- So have you always loved horticulture?

- I love flowers.

My father, my father grew like 200 tomato plants every year and I'm not a vegetable grower.

I'm a flower person.

Flowers are so beautiful, I really believe that God created them to give all humans joy.

We need all the joy and love that we can get on this earth, especially in this times.

And so when I look at flowers, I just think, thank you God, for creating all these beautiful, magnificent, wonderful flowers that are every single one is different.

You look at the delphinium and I just, ah, I love it.

And then my bubble gum pink petunias, love those.

I mean, every flower to me has been such a gift.

- Well, and I was admiring your fairy gardens.

Do you do those?

- I love to do the fairy gardens.

That's probably my very favorite thing that I do each summer.

Every year they look a little bit different.

So we'll put a little path or a little road or a little something different than we did the last year.

We also try to put them in different places and they're kind of, to me, they're a different focal point in the yard because they're so tiny and small and they give such a different look to a garden because, because they're just completely different than all the big statues and the different plantings.

- Do you take them in for the winter?

- Yes, we do.

We take them, they all go in little separate boxes.

Each little pot goes in separate boxes and the houses all go in a box and they're all stored inside because some of the fairies that I have are specially made by a factory that went out of business, and they're like very, very valuable.

It's taken me years to accumulate as much fairy decor as I have.

- [Mary] Do you make the other pots also?

- [Linda] Yes.

I planted the spiller, thriller and fillers.

And that means that you want something to fill, something to spill and something to thrill.

And so my thriller in there is the escargot.

Oh, I love that, that's one of my very favorite plants.

See the curly Q in the leaves.

I mean, there's no other plant like that.

- [Mary] I absolutely love how you use color and texture in your planters.

- [Linda] Well, thank you Mary, so much.

I try to mix it up.

Sometimes I find that we have very favorite plants.

We love caladiums.

We love caladiums, so early in the spring, we have to go get all our caladium bulbs and Tim plants them very early.

And we try to get them to come up because they're a very slow grower.

So we love the caladiums very much, you'll see them throughout the whole gardens.

- What are some of the other plants that you like to use for textures?

- Oh boy, there's so many.

We love impatiens because we're in the shade.

So you're gonna see lots and lots of impatiens here.

I love coleus, I love the vining plants.

I like things that are bushy.

I like things that are soft and I love the bright, brilliant colors that you'll see in Tim's Japanese garden.

But my very favorite is the pink bubblegum petunias that I planted in the big fairy garden.

- [Mary] Well, you've got both sun and shade here in your yard, don't you?

- [Linda] Yes, we do.

We have mostly shade and then we have a sun garden.

I do have roses in back of the sun garden, but they still don't get enough sun because we have so many plantings in front of them.

- [Mary] I see that you use a lot of ferns too.

- [Linda] Oh, love ferns.

They're so beautiful and the texture is just so elegant.

It's just hard to describe the characteristics of each plant because each plant has its own beautiful aspect.

And we so enjoy all the different plantings.

- Where do you shop for your plants, like your impatiens and the begonias?

- We shop at every single nursery we can look at!

(they laugh) I'm kind of like the lady that if there's a plant stand, we have to stop.

It's like, whoa, Nelly.

I need to look at those flowers.

I have to see if they have something different that I've never seen before, or if there's something more beautiful than I have at home.

So we shop at so many places.

We do have some favorite nurseries, however, that we go to.

- When do you pot up your planters?

- Probably end of April, in May, May when it gets, you know, when the cold weather seems to subside some.

We actually recycle all of our dirt.

We recycle and we always add more compost, more amenities to that dirt every year.

And we recycle and reuse all the potting soil that we, that came in the pots that we have purchased.

So we're kind of real careful about that.

We don't use pesticides.

We do use fertilizer.

Tim has done a marvelous job in keeping things watered.

When you have to water 120 pots, it's a lot of watering.

- Linda, if we have some young couples watching the show, what advice would you give them to get started in having a beautiful yard like you?

- Take it one step at a time.

When we moved here, there was nothing but dirt, the trees and a couple of lilac bushes.

So I found a neighbor that was selling ice cream pails full of hostas.

And I went and I think I cleaned her out.

I bought every hosta she had.

So I started along the side of the yard here, which is the hosta garden now, and started to plant hostas.

And so we just added and added, my very favorite hosta is Montana.

It comes up just beautifully.

It stands up like a soldier standing at attention and it just spreads its leaves out so beautiful and the colorations in it are just stunning.

There's really not a hosta I don't like.

- [Mary] How many do you have here in your yard?

- [Linda] When I first started planting here, I think I just, we've just been adding and adding and I think we have at least 200 or more.

- Wow!

- But we don't have tons of different varieties.

A lot of them are the same.

Mary, this is my very favorite part of the yard.

This is my large fairy garden.

We have the big white bird cage with fairy statues sprinkled all around and my favorite flower in the yard, it's the pink bubblegum petunias.

I love pink bubblegum petunias.

They are so massive.

And they bloom constantly all the way from early spring until summer.

I do have a secret, however.

- I was gonna ask about that, 'cause yours are nicer than mine.

- Well, my secret is, when you're planting the pots in the spring, because I plant all my own hanging baskets.

You squeeze the roots.

I put five plants in each pot.

The roots don't mind to be squeezed.

Just give them a lot of good dirt all around them.

And then we fertilize them as I say, once a week.

And because there's so many plants in each planter, they need to have water every day.

But as you can see, pink is my favorite color.

And this is my very favorite part of the gardens.

- So, do you prune them at all during the summer or dead head?

- No.

Super petunias don't need to be pruned.

You don't have to dead head them.

They just bloom profusely and there's no deadheading needed.

That's what I love about them.

- [Mary] So how long do they bloom for you?

- Oh, I have pictures of them covered with snow and they're beautiful, those pictures are so beautiful, 'cause they look like the lace on flowers.

So they'll bloom until we get heavy, heavy frost.

- [Mary] And I love how you have put the yellow flowers along in because that just really sets off.

- Yes, we try to have some accents in the garden so that, you know, they show up more.

When we buy the plants, they're just teeny weeny.

I mean, they hardly have a couple of trails on them.

And Tim starts, we start watering and fertilizing and then as the warmth becomes, you know, it gets warmer and warmer, they start to just spread and bloom and look what they do!

They just make me excited.

They're like fireworks to me.

- But they are just beautiful.

Thanks for sharing this area.

- Oh, you're so welcome.

(bright piano music) - I have a question.

I lost a tree due to storm damage.

Should I plant a new one?

And if so, what kind?

- Well, I would always plant a new tree because it is sad to lose these big, beautiful trees.

Sometimes trees we grew up with have been in our family for a generation, but the best thing to do is plant something else.

And one of the best choices is to think about planting an oak, and if you're thinking about planting an oak, white oak, which is this tree next to me, is one of the very best choices.

White oak is a native tree in Minnesota.

It's probably the longest lived tree in the state.

They're very durable, long lived.

Some of the same white oaks that were present during the American revolution in the east coast of the U.S. are still living.

They also benefit more species of birds and wildlife than any other plant.

People don't always think of it, but a family of chickadees needs 5,000 plus caterpillars to feed their babies when they're growing up, and oak trees, especially white oak, support more different species of moss and butterflies than any other tree.

So we think of caterpillars as being a pest, but they're actually the most important food for almost all baby birds.

And so white oak is just an amazing tree.

It's similar to bear oak, but it has a, the leaf is not like shaped like a bass fiddle.

It just has rounded lobes that are kind of arranged along a central vein.

It turns a beautiful purple kind of maroon color later in the fall.

And if after some of the other fall color is over, so it extends the fall color season.

They are very strong.

We did lose a tree in this spot to lightning, and that's something that can happen.

It was a white oak and we didn't hesitate to plant the same species right here, because even though it's gonna take a while, this tree is growing well, we water it, keep it mulched.

And it'll over a time we're gonna have another beautiful white oak in this location that could be here for a hundred years.

- [Narrator] Ask the Arboretum Experts has been brought to you by the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska, dedicated to enriching lives through the appreciation and knowledge of plants.

- Tim, your yard flows absolutely beautifully.

But tell me about this lovely gazebo.

- Well, one summer we had a particularly bad mosquito year.

So the next winter I spent the winter designing it, and made sure that it was screened in, and in the spring I built it.

- [Mary] So then who decorated it?

- [Tim] Linda designed and decorated the inside.

Of course I did the work and she told me what to do.

Inside is just like another room.

So it was decorating a room, basically.

- [Mary] Well, I want to find out a little bit more about some of your water features too.

- Okay.

- How many water features do you have in this yard?

- [Tim] We have two ponds with waterfalls and 13 fountains.

This one used to be just a little bubbler and I decided to make it into a small waterfall instead.

- [Mary] How do you care for these?

- [Tim] The plants that we put in here, the water lettuce and the water hyacinth, help keep the algae down.

And we also add a little bit of a blue coloring called pond shade that also helps keep the algae down.

So the ponds are pretty low maintenance.

The fountains I drain whenever they get very dirty.

I do have another trick that I use where I put hydrogen peroxide in them to help keep the sides clean and that's safe for the birds.

So it's much better than detergent or bleach or something like that.

- What do you do with all of these in the winter time?

- The, all of the statues that aren't cement and all of the fountains that are resin get stored in the gazebo.

And then we wrap the entire gazebo with plastic and it keeps the snow out and they stay nice and safe in there.

- Is this a patio out here?

- [Tim] Yes, that was actually one of the first things I did.

The slope of the yard was just a hill that went down and we have about a 30 foot drop back here.

So I dug out half of the hill and put it on the other side and built the railing and the retaining wall there to make it into a nice flat patio.

And next to the sunken patio is the Japanese garden.

And this is one of my favorite areas because I get to design it.

And it's not a true Japanese garden as far as the elements go, but we have a lot of the traditional elements such as the pagodas, the Japanese fishermen.

We also have a Chinese warrior mixed in there.

So it's a blend.

The cranes are a traditional Japanese element and most Japanese gardens don't have a lot of color.

So we've added a lot of the red begonias and some red impatiens to add some pop of color to the whole garden.

- [Mary] Tim, what is this statue or this fountain right here?

- [Tim] That is a small little fountain that we call the fire fountain, because it's got an LED light that lights up the little flame in the middle.

- [Mary] So there's not actually a fire there or anything?

- [Tim] No, it's just lights.

- [Mary] I also love the topiary.

How often do you have to clip that?

- [Tim] Those get trimmed at least once a year.

They're a juniper and we purchased them with the balls.

And so we try to keep the same ball shape that they came with, but they do like to grow.

- [Mary] So once a year is enough?

- [Tim] Yes, I did it about a month ago.

And they're starting to look a little shaggy again.

So, sometimes twice.

- [Mary] Do you have to do anything to get that through the winter?

- [Tim] I put burlap over them because we do tend to get some winter burning from the winter sun.

In the centerpiece of the Asian Japanese garden is the pond.

When I built it, I wanted a flat spot for the birds to take baths and I used a rigid liner for the pond part.

And when I built it, I didn't realize it was actually in the shape of a guitar and I play classical guitar.

So it turned out to be very fitting for that.

- And you didn't even plan it that way.

- No, it was an accident.

(Mary chuckles) - [Mary] Well, thank you so much for sharing your beautiful yard with us and with all of Prairie Yard and Garden viewers.

- [Tim] Well thank you very much for coming, we very much enjoyed having you and being able to share the yard with everybody.

(gentle music) - [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.

Farmer's 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 Yackel-Juleen, 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 and Garden, visit pioneer.org/pyg.

(bright music)