Friday Garden Blogging
Munsinger & Clemens Gardens
Part of Clemens Gardens, Saint Cloud, Minnesota
Original fountain in Munsinger Gardens, Saint Cloud, Minnesota
My home town is in many ways an arm pit on the surface of Earth. It is therefore amazing that along the eastern bank of the Mississippi River the city has a set of gardens that are renowned for their beauty.
The original site is called Munsinger Gardens. The stonework you see in the second photo above is a legacy of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
The Clemens Gardens were an addition of the 1990s.
We arrived a little late, so what you see here were shot in fairly low light. I’ll try to add a garden blogging special edition on Clemens and Munsinger Gardens if there is time before we leave town.
August 19th, 2006 at 14:32
Yes, please! More, more, more!
August 19th, 2006 at 20:18
Those are indeed (as Avedon Carol says) smashing photos of outstanding gardens. (With a professional eye — 20 years working at the Los Angeles County Arboretum — I note that it’s a high-maintainance garden, _well_ maintained, which is becoming rare in our corner-cutting economic environment.)
August 20th, 2006 at 03:36
More, please.
I love the mix of dark purple petunias and dusty miller in late light that’s lost a lot of its yellow. They glow.
August 21st, 2006 at 23:01
Eric,
The photos of Munsinger and Clemens gardens are wonderful, and remind me of what I miss about St. Cloud. They also inform me that I did not appreciate our old home town as a kid. Kudos for posting them! But how can you call our old stomping grounds an “arm pit”?
August 26th, 2006 at 06:26
Hi Mel, yep, an arm pit in many ways. A trip to the SW big-box, hamburger, frenetic-traffic end of town confirms this. St. Cloud is not that different than a lot of other places, especially the Cities, I guess, though it seems to have embraced this kind of development with a rare zeal. Not that it doesn’t have benefits and potential too. But unfortunately much of its historic potential has been plowed under.