Embedded Files
The St. Anthony Park Garden Club was formed in 1997. One of its original members, Warren Gore, was a library volunteer who had been planting the window boxes with funds from the St. Anthony Park Library Association. He encouraged the Garden Club to adopt the planting of the window boxes as a project. This is how the Garden Club began its long relationship with our Carnegie Library.
Over the years, additional gardens sprouted.
The triangle garden at Como and Carter Avenues is A, the Incredible Edible herb garden where each summer we harvest herbs for library patrons. Check out African Blue basil. Its lavender flowers are edible. Lavandula ‘Cynthia Johnson’ edges the Como sidewalk and generally survives Minnesota’s winters. Parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, tarragon, chives and Allium ‘Summer Beauty’ are featured in this garden.
Continue southeast along the Como sidewalk and you will find B, twin oval beds straddling the short staircase. Featured are two Hydrangea paniculata cultivars, ‘Little Quick Fire’ and ‘Bobo’, both early-flowering and short. The ground cover planted beneath these shrubs is woodland iris (Iris cristata) and string stonecrop and bugleweed.
C, the window boxes on the library building vary every year, but include coleus, various kinds of petunia, and Marengo ivy.
Fronting D, the library’s grand staircase, we feature two powdery-mildew-resistant perennials: Phlox paniculata ‘Jeana’ and Phlox ‘Daughter of Pearl’. Jeana was rated with excellent disease resistance at the Mt. Cuba Phlox Research study and is also known to be a butterfly magnet. Daughter of Pearl has a U.S. patent because of its mildew resistance. These are interplanted with annuals like Salvia ‘Mystic Spires Blue’ and Ageratum. Along the front of the bed, you’ll find many Helleborus ‘Frostkiss Molly’s White’ with variegated foliage, first trialed in the Twin Cities in this garden, and the pollinator-favorites Calamintha ‘Montrose White’ and Nepeta ‘Neptune’ near annual alyssum ‘Snow Crystals’.
In the center E of the staircase bed, between the yews, sweet woodruff surrounds Hydrangea paniculata 'Moon Rock'. On the opposite side are hardy fall-blooming Minnesota mums, more Salvia, and Anemone japonica 'September Charm', contained by perennial Geranium (cranesbill).
In 2025, the book return area (F) was overhauled by the central library for better accessibility by the central library and planted with Rhus aromatica 'Gro-Low', Nepeta 'Walker's Low', Hydrangea paniculata 'Bobo', and Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster'.
Walk up the alley past a row of peonies to enter G, the pollinator garden, when you see the boulders. Work began on this garden in spring 2015 following the removal of buckthorn, mulberry, honeysuckle and box elder in late 2014.
Follow the path along the fence, between annual zinnias on the left and perennials and native wildflowers on the right. There are two miniature gardens hidden along the path, meant for the eyes of children who visit.
The path connects to a switchback that brings you down to the rotunda patio and picnic table off of Como Avenue. This hill garden was designed to attract pollinators: bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. Imagine the rotunda dome of the children’s library addition as the sun and the rows of perennial and annual flowers as the rays of the sun. Once you reach the H lower lawn and patio via the switchback, enjoy the blooms of bumblebee magnet black cohosh (Actaea racemosa) that follow the curve of the rotunda.
Then take the brick path to Como Avenue. To your left is J, the crabapple border with Malus ‘Candymint’ and a new 'PairiFire' underplanted with spring ephemerals, pink-flowering Anemone, yellow corydalis, Korean goatsbeard (Aruncus aesthusifolius), prairie smoke (Geum triflorum), miniature dwarf bearded iris and annual Impatiens ‘Sol Luna Prime Pearl’.
The library gardens are maintained by the Garden Club's Weekly Weeders, who meet each winter to discuss the garden designs and place plant orders, then help plant, weed, and mulch the gardens.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse