We are proud to announce that Field Outdoor Spaces was awarded a 2010 MNLA Merit Award for our annual bedding plant management and garden maintenance at Oakridge Golf Club located in Hopkins, MN. We are going on our fifth year of partnership installing and maintaining the club’s annual flower beds. This is the second year in a row that we have won an award for commercial garden maintenance.

Last fall, we submitted our entry for the landscape management award to MNLA (Minnesota Nursery and Landscape Association). Part of the award criteria was based on the submission of twenty digital photos taken throughout the season and a written description about each photo. Please visit the website www.gardenminnesota.com to check out our work under ‘Award Winning Landscapes’ and ‘Merit Award 2010.’ Pictures of the gardens will also be displayed through March at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska, MN.

Preparation for the annual installation begins in January with new designs and preparing the plant order. Around May 15^th, our crews install the annuals. Colorful seasonal plantings are found in high traffic areas with bold bursts of color that greet club members. Our annuals are found around the tee boxes, under trees, and in areas where members and their families frequent, such as the pool and tennis court areas. In a typical year we install over 250 flats of annuals at the club, including simple bedding plants like zinnias and petunias as well as specialty plants like cannas, purple fountain grass and house ferns. After installation, we are at the course every Monday to dead-head, remove dead or underperforming plants, and weed every week.

We are honored to have won such a distinguished award. Our company, along with other award winners, will be recognized at a dinner hosted by MNLA in March.

The garden at Highpoint Center for Printmaking is now complete. The design of the garden has been a collaborative, evolving process between sculptor Kinji Akagawa and Field owner Jason Rathe, with brainstorming sessions with Highpoint’s Cole Rogers and the architects from James Dayton Design. Further credit goes to the crews from Highpoint and Field who helped dig through ridiculously hard dirt and endure baking sun to complete this beautiful space.

The design changed greatly from the original concept based on budget constraints and a mid-design realization that the area was going to be flat rather than sloped. The garden is designed to be a visual counterpart to the exciting building renovation completed by James Dayton Design (whose work includes the super-cool Macphail Center for Music building in Minneapolis).

The garden is visible from inside the Center as well as from the parking lot. One view, out a large picture window, is dominated in the foreground by a Volkswagen-size rock nestled into an ipe deck with a pagoda dogwood framing the left side. Kinji sculpted a bird-bath in the huge rock where, incredibly, birds flocked within hours of completion.

The main gargantuan rocks had to be installed with a clam truck. While the clam truck made the installation possible, the process had to be done carefully on new concrete sidewalks. But the unexpected replacement of two concrete sections allowed the concrete contractor, Jon Pietig, to add his own touch to the project, embedding two flagstone steppers leading into the garden path.

Part of the design challenge of the project was bringing elements together whose synergies aren’t readily apparent: Japanese garden elements with Minnesota native plants and a rain garden. Some elements melded easily - the rain channel leading from the downspout to the rain garden allowed us to install a cool cut-stone bridge - a strong Japanese element. A stepping stone path leads through the garden to a long, architectural ipe deck in the back. The areas between and around the stepping stones are planted with ground-hugging natives pussy toes (Antennaria neglecta) and long-leaf bluet (Houstonia longifolia) as well as creeping thyme and vinca vine. The native plant material was all obtained from Out Back Nursery in Hastings and Landscape Alternatives Nursery in Scandia.

Other interesting elements include three stone benches flanked by stone columns and a calming gray trap gravel area resembling a small, dark pond. Native plants are arranged around the gravel “pond.” The plant communities in the garden and in the perimeter plantings around the parking lot include lots of little blue stem grass punctuated with mid-height flowering plants like blazing star, foxglove penstemon, prairie phlox, and marsh milkweed.  A grouping of chokecherries at the corner are already laden with clusters of fruit - ready for birds to harvest. Tall shrubs along the perimeter include staghorn sumac, fragrant sumac and nannyberry viburnum as well as the native groundcover shrub - dwarf bush honeysuckle.

A big thanks to everyone who helped in the design and installation of the garden and to Highpoint and Cole Rogers for giving us the opportunity to work on the garden. I will be thrilled to observe the garden for years to come as it matures over time and dynamically changes through the season.

The picture to the left shows an evolving project in south Minneapolis we worked on two years ago. Even within this narrow space two distinct spaces are created with the wallstone wall and there is always something warm and inviting about clay pavers - here in a circular patio with soldier course. I couldn’t resist taking this picture showing the space starting to get that “lived-in” look.

As part of Earth Day, Field volunteered time to do some neighborhood clean-up. Unfortunately, our efforts were somewhat stymied because the park we were assigned to clean-up was nabbed by other garbage-pickers due to a large turn-out last weekend. So we sufficed with walking around the neighborhood cleaning up litter on the streets. We collected about 10 bags of garbage.

Collecting garbage makes you ponder the “littering events.” Did it come from a tipped garbage can or someone casting a cup from a car? Somethings, like beer bottles and Taco Bell cups are easy to explain. But there were things hard to explain - a pile of fruit in the back alley, whole plastic bags of assorted litter, tens of clothes hangers. This might be an idea for an indie film.

Well, its official: spring has arrived. We were able to get a crew out on Thursday and two crews out on Friday starting on garden clean-ups. Its exciting to start a new season. We have a GREAT group of employees and, as always, great clients who provide us the opportunity to beautify their landscapes and gardens.

The MNLA awarded Field a Grand Honor Award in the category of Commercial Management at the 2008 MNLA Awards Night in February. The MNLA website displays the awards and a handful of pictures. The award was given for the work we’ve done over the past four years at the corporation Beckman Coulter. Beckman was our first client and tipped the scales on whether we were going to start a company, so the award is especially meaningful.

We need to thank the management at Beckman for the incredible value they put on the everyday work experience of their employees. The multi-building site has a memorial rose garden where employees stroll during lunch time and take calls under rose bedecked arbors, a dramatic waterfall outside a main entrance, and perennial gardens surrounding every building that we fill with seasonal color. It is not only a great place for Beckman employees, it is also one of our favorite places to work, because of the wonderful flowers and wildlife (butterflies, sphinx moths, snakes, hummingbirds) the gardens entice.

WE’VE MOVED!!! So it needs a little work (okay, a lot of work), but we’re excited about it! This is the first time Field has an office space, yard and storage facility all in one place, so our crew, design team and bookkeeper can all work and collaborate together. We’re located in the fabulous Seward neighborhood, right off the Greenway and light rail line - not to mention great eateries like Pizza Lucé and the Birchwood Cafe.