An Eden Prairie gardener’s canvas

When they moved to Eden Prairie a decade ago, Collin and Carrie Bonde’s home was edged by a thicket of buckthorn along their side and back yards. So, too, were other homes in the hilly, wooded swath of north-central Eden Prairie known as Edenvale.

Collin, an advanced analytics manager at General Mills, and Carrie, an associate director of accounting at UnitedHealth Group, did something about the habitat-destroying tree shrub that came with the deed. They’ve replaced the thicket with an array of shade-loving plants and kid-fun footpaths. Just ask their two kids, Amelia and Devon, or their Raven Court neighbors.

A National Wildlife Federation sign fixed to a cedar privacy fence reads, “This property is recognized for its commitment to sustainably provide the essential elements of wildlife habitat.” Woodpeckers, chipmunks, and bumblebees dart about. Bunnies and fawns sample the hostas each summer.

The Bonde yard is a work-in-progress worthy of, but not born from, a landscape design firm’s concept. It’s got personality. “This is all me, teaching myself from what I learned from my dad,” Collin Bonde explained while pointing to patches of meadow rue, wild ginger and oak sedge. In a few years, these native Minnesota plants will merge into quilts.

Bonde searches the internet to learn about and select annual and perennial woodland plants that are both eye-catching and provide food for wildlife. He admits to spraying repellent on what cottontails and whitetails consider menu items at an all-you-can-eat salad bar.

Each May, Collin and Carrie select a few annuals at the Picha Farms plant sale on Birch Island Road and are customers of Glacial Ridge Growers in Glenwood. They like the wholesaler’s broad variety of native and non-native plants.

Among the star performers in August and September are largeleaf asters, which are native; foxglove from Europe; and ageratum from Central and South America.

As Collin tells it, the plant selections he and Carrie make for shade-tolerant natives and the occasional ornamental come from 80% research and 20% guesswork. “I try to balance what will work throughout the year,” he said. Their yard provides pollinators with food from March into October and remains naturally handsome from muddy March through snow flurries in February.

Drought and high temperatures this summer have been hard on home gardens. Bonde has found deer and rabbit damage on plants that they normally avoid. But he sees an upside: “We’re starting to learn, these last few weeks, just how many plants are truly resistant and don’t need spraying.”

Rainwater from the house roof is stored in barrels with irrigation driplines. Devon and Amelia like to help with watering cans. Large areas of their yard have been hydro-sprayed with shade-tolerant grass seed by a professional contractor. “We still want to keep flat, traditional lawn places where our kids can run around,” says Collin.

Back story includes western Minnesota farmland

Collin Bonde credits his parents, Beth, a health science professor, and Bruce, a family doctor, for his green thumb. He and his younger sister Andria were raised in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, with a large garden and orchard in their backyard. They would take family trips to western Minnesota to visit friends and an old farm the family bought in the mid-1990s.

The 80-acre spread in Lac Qui Parle County is six miles shy of the South Dakota border. U.S. Highway 212 westward from Eden Prairie will get you there.
 
Their land is nested on flat soybean and corn farming country dotted with state and federal-protected waterfowl production and wildlife management areas. A large parcel next to it is owned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  
 
Collin recalls that his dad and grandfather had hunted on the property. They were inspired by the Larson family, who were applying conservation and sustainability principles to their own nearby farm fields.

Less than three generations ago, the sloughs, creeks and grasslands in the area were part of what was a continental-sized prairie from the Canadian taiga to the Gulf of Mexico. The Great Plains quickly became Earth’s single largest farming and ranching region.
 
During Collin’s middle and high school years, he would sometimes help his dad spread prairie grass and forb seed mixes on the former cropland. His father had placed a conservation easement on the property with the Fish and Wildlife Service, which was permitted to manage the burns and build two small dams on its meandering creek. This patch of restored prairie and wetland made sustainable by informed stewardship was born from an ethic that Collin brought with him to Eden Prairie.

On Raven Court

A few years back, city workers cut down the thick curtains of buckthorn along Woodhill Trail, where it forms a T intersection with the Raven Court cul-de-sacs. Poor sight lines made the corner risky for cars, kids and strollers.

With saw, shovel and sweat, Collin dug out the buck stumps and roots left by the city and removed the aggressive tree shrub from the rest of his property. The wild cherry trees in the thicket were spared. “I should have really borrowed a Weed Wrench for that job,” he said. Because of the neighborhood children, he did not use herbicide.

To surface the garden paths, the Bondes gathered gravel mulch spread out by the previous owner. Sawed lengths of mostly buckthorn trunks edge these paths. They curve past a birdbath resembling a leaf of Tuscan kale, a stump with a hollow core and villages of hosta. A gnome sighting (a live one) would not surprise.

“Carrie has a much better eye for laying out spaces and helps every year to refine the designs I make on paper,” says Collin. Carrie designed and hand-built outdoor brickwork, a potting bench and the woodwork in the vegetable garden. Her dad is a carpenter.

Among this year’s avian tourists and nesters, Collin and Carrie have logged robins, house finches, goldfinches, blue jays, and cardinals. Their children call the cardinals “red jays.”

They’ve also spotted hummingbirds, chickadees, tree sparrows, nuthatches, juncos, and three types of woodpeckers: pileated, hairy, and downy. “They love our feeders,” says Collin, “but I often find them nestled in the sedges.”

Squirrels and opossums have wandered through; so, too, lots of toads and two kinds of gray tree frogs, the ones with loud, high-pitched croaks.

Collin believes the hot weather has been hard on insects. He’s spotted only five species of bees (down this year) but has identified 12 varieties of caterpillar (an unexpected uptick).

A large, lime-green winged luna moth and huge, chirpy katydids are this year’s insect stars. “It’s been great for my kids to see the variety that can live in such a small space.”

As Carrie walks with Amelia and Devon to their school bus stop, they pass lilac-scented hostas and sprays of purple Peruvian lily, some of early autumn’s exotic showoffs — for the time being. In a few weeks, sumac, maples, oak and quaking aspens will begin repainting Raven Court, Woodhill Trail and the rest of Eden Prairie.

Editors note: Writer Jeff Strate took all the photos in this article. Jeff serves on EPLN’s Board of Directors. He has organized and participated in buckthorn pulls and workshops in Eden Prairie, Edina and Minnetonka.

INFORMATION AND LINKS ON WOODLAND GARDENING

• Check in with experienced local landscaping companies and garden centers and read good books.

• Check out the websites of the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and the University of Minnesota Extension.

• For information on buckthorn management on your land, visit the “controlling buckthorn” page of the U of M Extension website.