Okay, so we’re not a bunch of extroverts at Morning Sky Greenery (MSG) and this is how I know! It all began last fall when we were called and asked  if we would be interested in being interviewed for an article that would feature our nursery for an upcoming issue of the Country Folks Grower magazine. Of course, we could not refuse the opportunity!  I set up a time for an interview for later that week.  The interview was on Thursday and after it was over, I felt like it went pretty well.  I was quite impressed with the knowledgeable questions of the interviewer. I was also asked to provide around 15 photos from Morning Sky Greenery from which they could choose to use for the article.  They needed the photos within the next couple of days, because they were in a hurry to get the article to press.

I thought to myself, “Oh, this will be easy! We have a lot of very nice photos of flowers, as well as some great shots of the nursery and greenhouses.” I found some “good ones” and started to send them over, via email,  to “Country Folks”.  A little later, I received an email from the magazine saying that there was one problem. They really wanted some photos of our employees doing their everyday work at the nursery and asked if I could send some photos of employees, not flowers and greenhouses. That’s when things began to get a little bit more interesting!

It was the end of the season and most of the MSG employees had gone back to college or high school. The others were taking a little time off to enjoy some relaxation after the busy year.  “Hmmmm” I thought to myself, “Surely, I could find a  few pictures of employees….somewhere.”  During the growing season, all of us take pictures at MSG. There are so many interesting things to photograph!  I thought, “Certainly, there must be some pictures of employees, planting, watering or doing whatever.”  I began my search.  First I checked my home computer. I found a few pictures of Mary and Katie collecting seed in the fall. Nice, but they were all facing away from the camera. I found several photos of Katie making goofy faces into her cell phone, while sitting in the middle of a native prairie remnant in a road ditch. That, surely, wasn’t going to work for the magazine article. I also, found a few photos of myself from the past, but nothing very current (that I liked, that is!).

I decided I’d better try to text, email or call some of my recent MSG employees, to see if they had any pictures, out there, we could use. I thought there may be a photo or two, possibly, on a cell phone or some that may have been left on the the MSG desktop, that I did not know about.  Ray mentioned that he, Jen and Jessie had taken some artistic photos of themselves holding their favorite flowers. He sent them over to me.  I took a look at them and thought to myself, “Oh my, these are way too cool!” Jen suggested I look on the desktop in Jessie’s folder. She thought maybe he had taken a few  photos from June 2010, when we had our big wind storm.  I checked his photo folder,  but all I found were photos of over-turned packs and pots and a photo of Jessie’s shadow taking a photo of the storm damage!!! Geesh, what a comedy! “Just a shadow of an employee”, I thought.

I searched and I searched and all I came up with were a whole lot of pictures of nature, but very few pictures of people….. let alone employees! Not only that, but the photos of employees I did find were less than adequate for a feature article about Morning Sky Greenery in a national grower magazine!

I came to realize that we are all so focused on the micro-world at Morning Sky, that we have done little to celebrate, by way of photography,  the people who work here! We  have taken all kinds of photos and videos of butterflies and caterpillars, green tree frogs and salamanders, snakes eating salamanders (Thank you for the video, Katie! :-*), bees and beneficial insects and even a posse of wild turkeys (Thanks for the fantastic photos, Kristen!) that have been hanging around.  I guess you could say that these creatures do good and very important work here too!  They get paid in pollen, nectar, plant material and in the food chain that exists at MSG!

Perhaps we are all just a bunch of wildlife enthusiasts (or turkeys…NOT!) at MSG and we tend to forget about how we all fit into the natural scheme of things! I must admit, that  all of this leads me to my 2012 New Years Resolution for Morning Sky Greenery! This year I plan to take, as well as encourage others to take, an abundance of photos of the people who fit in very nicely with the natural community we all cherish, dearly, around here!  Keep shooting! (Oh, and if anyone wants some wild turkeys… Thanks to all who work and have worked at Morning Sky Greenery! Please know that you are loved and a Happy New Year to all of you!!

PS: You can find out  ” the rest of the story…” when you’re here for a visit this coming growing season!

Morning Sky Greenery is on Facebook! Make sure you navigate over to our Facebook Page and hit that ‘Like’ button to keep up to date on our latest inventory changes and any special promotions we may be doing!

Wow! What a quick month this has been! We have been extremely busy transplanting seedlings and planting bulbs and roots. Everything is germinating and growing, so well! I think the native plants are ready for spring this year. We will have a lot of new species for 2011 and we will post them as soon as we can grab a little time to to do so! In the mean time, if you are looking for a particular species, please inquire. We may just have it!!!

Our woodland wildflowers are in bloom in the greenhouse. They are an absolute joy! We, also, have dormant wildflowers from overwintered stock, that are coming up slowly in their pots. If you place an order for them soon, you will be able to enjoy their blooms this year!

The Greenery is  going even greener in 2011! We will not be producing a new catalog until our current catalog is gone.  What this means to you is that our plant prices have remained the same and that a business you support is finding new ways to use our paper resources more efficiently.  Please let us know if you would like us to send you a catalog and we would be glad to do so! You can email us at info@morningskygreenery.com You may also download a catalog or an order form directly from our websites “Home” page with current availability and shipping prices.  Or,  Shop Online!

We are looking forward to our soon-to-be sprouts! We have been very busy working on production schedules for 2011 and cleaning and stratifying seeds. If you have particular plants that you are interested in,  let us know and we will make sure that we increase our plantings of those species.  Also, we are always working on new species, so please inquire…we may just have it!

Morning Sky Greenery is looking forward to hearing what’s up from both familiar and new friends of native plants. Please blog us in 2011! We would love to hear your native plant stories and keep the dialog going!!!

Happy Spring Thinking!!!

It is so white on the prairie that when the sun comes out it seems like you could get your whole (newly recommended) daily dose of 600 mg of vitamin D in 5 minutes (added value blog).

We have packed away our plants, clustered our trees and bushes and are now cleaning and stratifying seed.  When you come upon a bag you remember collecting you go back to warmer days, “seeing” for the first time blue bottle gentian, prairie onion and aster. This is my first year at the “Greenery” and my walks in the prairie will never be the same.

Wrapping things up for the winter here at MSG, with fond memories of a summer filled with life.

Pale Purple Coneflower (Echinacea pallida) and Prairie Larkspur (Delphinium virescens)

It’s July! Did you know that the birth flower for this sweltering month is the Delphinium (Larkspur)? This fact is actually quite puzzling considering that Delphinium virescens, the Larkspur carried by Morning Sky Greenery, becomes dormant during the hotter part of the year including – you guessed it – July. It has been a while since our last update because June was a quite busy month. Everyone here is hard at work on various projects. Sally is currently working diligently on native flower arrangements for the wedding of a previous employee this weekend. Beautiful arrangements of Echinacea purpurea (Purple Coneflower) and Ratibida pinnata (Yellow Coneflower) are being gathered.  This has been a nice change of pace for student employees who have been working tenaciously on a project well suited to their youthful, limber bodies. They have been working to expand our outdoor nursery space by almost 25% by re-purposing a previously landscaped area. Also with large orders winding down, storm damage to our outdoor lattice fencing is being repaired this month. We look forward to seeing local plant lovers at our booth on Horticulture Night, July 29th at the University of Minnesota’s West Central Research and Outreach Center.

A view of some of the wind damage to our native grasses.

Tuesday morning, bleary eyed and still half asleep, Jen and I arrived at Morning Sky Greenery. Habitual and necessary coffee in hand, we slunk through the greenhouse to activate the new automatic watering system for the outdoor plants. Casually opening the door and conversing normally, we stepped out to activate the spigot which provides water to the automatic system. Gasps. Stepping into the back, it looked as though many of our grasses had been picked up by a crane and dropped forcefully into a pile on our forbes. Packs, flats, and plugs were strewn about in a scene that proved instantly stressful. Standing around and muttering generically surprised phrases was all we could do for at least ten minutes, as we wandered the grounds assessing the damages. A large diseased tree, thankfully destined for removal anyway, was downed by the wind directly beside our building. Luckily it fell perfectly, missing the building and also taking care of some unwanted shrubbery. Waiting for one of our supervisors to arrive, we marveled at what the wind had done. We had known that a storm occurred the night previous, but had no reason to believe that significant damage may have accompanied it. Mary and Sally soon arrived and the cleanup began. Because grasses could now be identified with some accuracy, a salvage operation was in order. As many plugs as possible were identified and organized, but the botanical horde was not without its casualties. Since Tuesday, a majority of time here has been spent organizing and replacing grasses most greatly affected. Fortunately, our stock will not be negatively affected and all grasses will be available as normal. The summer is just beginning here at Morning Sky, but we can already tell that it will be a beautiful one. Get outside and enjoy the beautiful weather this weekend!

Well, OK, winter is finally here and we have stacked up all of our plants for the winter. ( Make sure you listen to our little ditty on the SHOP ONLINE page!) It is a very laborious task, but it needs to get done. It feels good to work hard and sweat even when your nose is cold and then have to peel off your winter coat because you are way too hot! Hard work is rewarding and when the days are done you can kick back and feel good about the accomplishment! All the perennials, trees, shrubs and vines all tucked in for winter.  Now we can all rest…. a little.