MN State Fair Garden Tour – Part Two

It hardly seems possible that The Fair is over for another year. In my four trips to the Fair this year, I’m sure I covered most of the 320 acres of the grounds. During yesterday’s visit, I did get to all of the 32 gardens on the grounds. Here are a few of the gardens I didn’t show you the other day:


Friends School of Minnesota. Since I go to their plant sale every Mother’s Day weekend, I thought I should include them. There’s a begonia in this garden named “Raquel Wood,” for the founding director of the Friends School in Minnesota. This garden also includes one of the Tree Sculptures, carved from stumps of Elm trees that had Dutch Elm disease.


There’s a wildflower garden by the Creative Activities building and the butterflies were loving it! I was lucky to get a couple shots of the butterflies.




This garden is provided by a local landscaping firm. It’s one of several gardens with a water feature. People love to come and sit on the ledge or up in the gazebo.





These galloping horse topiaries aren’t on the map, but I saw them as I was wandering from garden to garden, and I liked them! They are lighted and have straw manes.





This is one of the more vibrant gardens on the grounds. It’s by the Administration building and is chock full of annuals and perennials, surrounding a boulder that bubbles water.




The blurb in the brochure for this garden (with Snoopy and Elvis) says it’s a favorite spot for napping. And, I did see a dozen or so folks taking a snooze, either on the shady lawn or on the benches in this very shady and tranquil garden spot. I could hardly believe over 100,000 people were roaming the grounds when I was in this garden.




I’ve walked by this “garden” at the bandshell hundreds of times and not even noticed it. The brochure says that the garden Is “overlooked by a rake imitating the rising sun and hopeful semi-finalists competing for a chance to perform on the big stage.” (The bandshell is where the preliminary talent competitions occur. Finalists get to perform at the grandstand the last Sunday of the Fair.)




These next snapshots are at the garden sponsored by the Minnesota Nursery and Landscape Association. This shot is of an annual (here in MN anyhow) called Indian Kale. It has these wonderful leaves and wine colored stems.

Here’s a little garden angel that surprised me on the path in the MNLA garden.




This gazebo with green roof and goat is part of the garden sponsored by the Minnesota Horticultural Society! I loved this idea. It reminded me of traveling through Norway where I’ve seen live goats grazing on roofs.


A colorful wading bird sculpture is perched at the edge of a pond in the Hort Society garden.



The last garden on today’s tour is the garden at the entrance to the International Bazaar. Even though it’s in full sun, people sit on the ledge to rest their feet while enjoying a cool beverage. This garden is filled with tropical plants.




I took a guided tour of the JV Bailey house yesterday and learned that the Canna Lily is the “signature” flower of the State Fair! No wonder I always associate the two! That’s it for the Fair this year. Tomorrow, it’s back to the gardens at Auntie Ks, and planning for the neighborhood Plant Swap on Saturday. Yikes!

MN State Fair Garden Tour – Part One

I should have figured that the Minnesota State Fair would have a brochure describing all the gardens at the Fair! But, it wasn’t until I got home last night that I thought to look for it online. So, yesterday, before and after my shift at the Horticulture Society, I just wandered the Fair taking snapshots. Now that I have the brochure, I can hit the ones on Monday that I missed yesterday! I don’t think I’ll get to mention all 32 gardens, but I’ll post about the ones that made the biggest impression on me.

I took this snapshot at the Grandstand Plaza. This garden isn’t on the “Adopt-a-Garden” brochure, but I like it because it uses lots of red leaf canna lilies, which I always associate with the State Fair. And, it has the State Fair logo (a la the Hollywood sign) in the background.

My visit to the JV Bailey House was one for the “you learn something new every day” category. I knew that people lived in “that cute yellow house,” but I had no idea who lived there. I always secretly wanted to be a gardener for the State Fair, but imagined it would be a monumental job, and contented myself with tending my own gardens.


I had no idea that the house is now being used for meetings of the Fair Foundation. It’s a beautiful home and has lots of its history (and Fair history) inside. But, they had no brochure, so I’ll have to go back and read everything again.



I talked to the guide at this garden—adopted by the Minnesota Water Garden Society. He told me the garden was going to be re-done at the end of the season because it was looking “dated.” They also wanted to include some more plants that would be in full bloom during the Fair.




The last garden on today’s tour is one I can’t identify from the brochure. I was completely in awe of the succulents used here.

Seed Art and Scarecrows

Two of my favorite things to check out at the Fair are the Seed Art and the Scarecrows. I marvel at the creative ideas people have for both art forms. I don’t know that any of the scarecrows would actually scare any birds away, and some I wouldn’t even put outside, but they’re really fun to look at. Like everything else at the Fair, anyone can enter! So, you see scarecrows created by kids, adults, and seniors!

Two of my favorite scarecrows from this year were the Garden Woman Scarecrow, which was papier-mache and used vintage seed packets on the body and the “Fair” Crow, which used several Fair favorites in its composition. (I love the cotton candy hair!) I don’t know when people start thinking about planning and designing these scarecrows, but they’re due for judging two weeks before the Fair begins (as are the seed art creations).

I admire the Seed Art because it’s something I definitely don’t have the patience for. I can’t imagine sitting at a table with a pile of tiny seeds gluing them on one-by-one to make a picture! It’s interesting to see the themes that emerge, too. The year Mel Gibson’s film about Jesus came out, there were lots of Seed Jesuses. In 2002, there were several twin towers. Just after election years, there are presidents. This year, the entries seemed diverse. One that made me laugh was a depiction of the Jet Blue flight attendant on the emergency slide.


The best seed art I saw this year was this clock. It’s amazing.






I also liked this birdhouse, which if left outside, would become more of a bird feeder than birdhouse!



The Fair runs through Labor Day, and my next shift at the Hort Society booth is Friday. So, it's back to the gardens at home until then. But, nxext weekend, I’ll have some photos of the gardens at the Fair.

Meet me at The Fair!

When you hear people talking about “the Fair,” you know they mean the Minnesota State Fair. My mind has been more on the Fair these last few days than it has been on the gardens here at Auntie K’s. Today is Opening Day, and over the next 12 days, I have plans to spend 4 days (or parts of 4 days) there. Today, I’m taking my nephews – the boys who call me Auntie K. It’s been our tradition now for 11 years to go on opening day. I cherish every trip because I know that in a year or two, they’ll prefer to go to the Fair with friends rather than with their Auntie.

I’ll be a volunteer for the Minnesota State Horticultural Society on my other three visits—stationed in the Ag/Hort building. Most likely, I’ll stay after my shift or go early on those days so I can take in all the goodies the Fair has to offer. I'll visit the 4H building, where kids come and stay in the dorms on the Fairgrounds while they show their animals, homemade clothing, and other projects. I’ll look for jam, pickles, and tomato sauce made by friends and displayed in wonderfully back-lit refrigerated cases. I’ll check out all the gardens around the Fairgrounds, admiring the designs and marveling that all the summer bulbs bloomed and look so great!

And, of course, I’ll eat. “Food on a Stick” is the Fair’s claim to fame. Pork chops, corn dogs, caramel apples, and deep-fried Twinkies (or candy bars) are a few of the delicacies the boys have sampled in the past. I’m not sure what food adventures await today. I heard rumors about chocolate covered bacon being on today’s agenda. Better pack some antacid.

Minnesota Landscape Arboretum – Field Trip #3

Remember the scene in the movie “Sound of Music” where Liesl and her boyfriend get caught in the garden by a surprise storm and they end up in the gazebo? That was what happened last Monday, when a friend and I went out to the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. Well, without the dancing and singing. Before the deluge, we did manage to get in some garden viewing.

We were greeted just off the parking lot by Patrick Dougherty’s latest willow creation – Uff da Palace. I had seen photos of it during the building process from the Arboretum, but seeing it in person was breathtaking. Inside the visitor center, we saw photos of other installations/sculptures by Dougherty and I was blown away.

This whimsical salad table on the plaza at the visitor center made us hungry, so we headed inside for lunch. After lunch, we started our garden tour. We got to see the entrance garden, the terrace garden, the perennial garden, the herb garden, and some of the rose garden before the downpour started in earnest and we took refuge in the rose garden’s gazebo – with a dozen or so other visitors. We were in the gazebo for about 45 minutes before the rain let up enough for us to make a break for the visitor center, where we discovered the tour we’d signed up for had been canceled due to the weather.

I think this visit taught me that I can approach visiting the Arboretum the same way I approach visiting the State Fair – go often, for short visits, at different times of the day – rather than doing one marathon day. You can then linger in a particular garden rather than feeling pressured to see everything in one visit.