Press

Metro Magazine: Mother Earth Gardens Planter Tips

We can’t all have a Versailles in our backyard. Never fear: Container gardening takes all the guesswork out of green-thumbery. Karen O’Connor, owner of Mother Earth Gardens in Minneapolis, has a few tips.

USE ALL SHAPES AND SIZES: A successful container garden requires plants of varying heights, so make sure your blueprint includes tall, medium and short/trailing plants and flowers. Hearty spikes and grasses anchor containers beautifully, while asparagus fern and sweet potato vine make excellent trailers.

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Mother Earth Gardens Voted Best in the Twin Cities

Mother Earth Gardens has three times been named by Minneapolis' City Pages as "Best Garden Center" in its annual "Best Of The Cities" feature.

2008: BEST GARDEN CENTER

Winner: Mother Earth Gardens

" Dealing with a short growing season and a long winter, a backyard gardener in this part of the country is an efficient and patient animal. One must work quickly when planting time comes, and must wait and wait and wait for it all winter long. It is easy for such an animal to want from its growing season the promise of an uncontested campaign to make seed into bounty. This might explain why nearly every garden store in the Twin Cities is thick with the acrid air of pesticide stock. The organic gardener need only pass through the parking lot of a garden store with window down and nose a-sniffin' to tell whether it's earth-friendly. Outside Mother Earth Gardens, all you can sniff is green. One of the few stridently organic garden supply stores in the Twin Cities, Mother Earth has adapted masterfully to the gardeners it serves. During growing season, you'll find pots, plants, guides, and even consultantsÑof both the contract and informal, neighborhoody variety. Everybody smiles in this place--and it's not clear if it's the staff or the customers who start it. In the winter, there are locally grown Christmas trees and a Santa with a real beard (who seems to have a Ph.D. in being a holiday icon--he was overheard last Christmas talking to a five-year-old about the Roman feast of Saturnalia). More crucially, the store offers seminars, especially during the long winter months of January and February, on getting ready to garden. Attendees make maps and charts and dream anxiously of their bounty to be. Then these efficient and patient animals go home and sit, waiting for the sun to burn through the snow, spade and charts in hand, pesticides be damned."

HomeLife Magazine: Mother Earth Gardens feature article

Everyone has their own answer to the question “If you could invite anyone to dinner, who would you choose?” Here’s my spin on that intriguing proposition: If I could invite anyone to share a glass of iced tea with me in my backyard, I would choose Paige Pelini and Karen O’Connor, owners of Mother Earth Gardens in Minneapolis.

Both women characterize their relatively new business partnership as being very honest and straightforward. “While we do very different jobs here, with some overlap, we trust each other 100%,” says O’Connor. “We communicate so well. And after being in business together for over a year now, we’re still friends!” Business is blooming, so to speak, at Mother Earth Gardens due in large part to an experienced staff, a commitment to quality products, and both Pelini’s and O’Connor’s incredible knowledge about gardening. (That’s the other reason I’d welcome them into my own garden–I could definitely use some advice!).

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2005: BEST GARDEN CENTER

"This neighborhood garden center in south Minneapolis is Mecca for garden gurus and novices alike. Here, the botanical-minded can find everything they need to create their very own oasis: wooden wind chimes that won't drive the neighbors batty, unique annuals that will make the same neighbors jealous, a wide assortment of clay pots that are sure to match any decor, and handmade decorations like glass butterflies that will add a signature touch to your labor of love. Plus, this meditative retreat in the center of the city is one of the few places that offer organic gardening supplies. There's no longer any need to kill those persistent weeds using earth-polluting chemicals. Instead, opt for a magical mixture of vinegar and lemon that will make even the thickest thistle shrivel up like it just got dropped into the deep fryer. Plus, the center's beyond-friendly employees are so knowledgeable about how to make a garden grow they could sprout gardenias from their fingertips. In winter."

2002: BEST GARDEN CENTER

"The Cities and suburbs are scattered with greenhouses so jam-packed with lawn ornaments and holiday knickknacks that they might as well be listed under "toys" in the yellow pages--and there's nothing wrong with that. But the smaller neighborhood garden centers often have better service and better doodads. Located in a large lot across the street from the Riverview Theatre, Mother Earth has all of the essential utilities and unessential extras you'll need come spring, from attractive clay pots to kids' gardening items such as tiny rubber Sloggers. The large lot and indoor store are also filled with cool garden decorations, from a giant hand-crafted metal butterfly to a cast-iron tower that looks like an oil well. What's more, as its title implies, Mother Earth is geared toward the gardener who wishes to keep the soil, the earth, and the self healthy--which isn't as tall an order as it seems. There's a broad selection of organic gardening products, including seeds harvested from plants raised without synthetic pesticides. For anyone hoping to make a yard bloom without dumping a vat of chemicals into the neighborhood, this is a good place to start."