Don't forget to care for your trees during the drought

During our drought, remember that trees – especially young trees – need watering any time it doesn’t rain an inch in a week. Under the sprinkling restrictions, tree watering is allowed with a dripping hose, bucket or tree watering bag as needed.

Yard and boulevard trees need water

Minneapolis yard and boulevard trees need an inch of water every week all through the summer-fall season. Lack of water can make trees vulnerable to insects and disease and cause permanent damage to young and old trees alike. Trees up to five years old are especially susceptible. The Park Board plants and mulches boulevard trees but relies on residents or businesses nearby to water them.

An effective way to water a tree is to turn on a slow stream of water (just so the hose is weeping) for a few hours. Watering in the evening is most effective since it minimizes evaporation, and trees tend to take most of their water during the night. Watering one tree weekly costs only about $3 for 23 weeks – the entire summer-fall season. For people who lose track of when they last watered a tree, a good way to remember is to water trees on the same day trash is picked up.

Protect our Minneapolis quality of life

Taking care of our trees means protecting our Minneapolis quality of life. Healthy trees are beautiful, increase property values, help improve air quality, reduce greenhouse gases by absorbing carbon dioxide, save energy, keep the city cooler, provide homes for wildlife and help manage stormwater. If you have space in your yard to plant a tree, consider getting one going so it can get a start on providing shade and making a better quality of life in your neighborhood. The larger the tree, the larger the benefits.

For information on tree care and the urban forest, call the Park Board’s Forestry Department at 612-313-7710, email forestry@minneapolisparks.org or visit www.minneapolisparks.org/trees.

—via City of Minneapolis

Even-odd water sprinkling restrictions in effect in response to drought

The City of Minneapolis has implemented even-odd water sprinkling restrictions until further notice. The city is now included in a drought warning as defined by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Drought Action Plan.

The Mississippi River has reliably provided the City of Minneapolis with drinking water for over 150 years. The City assures the public of its continued ability to produce sufficient quantities of high quality water for its residents and wholesale customers. The City’s sprinkling restrictions are in place to help reduce demand on the Mississippi River during the ongoing drought. Other metro cities have similar measures in place.   

Sprinkling restrictions

• Sprinkling lawns is NOT allowed from noon to 6 p.m. on any day.

• On calendar days that are even numbers (examples: July 26 or Aug. 18), the even side of the street CAN sprinkle lawns outside of the noon to 6 p.m. time window. Examples: 1238 Oak St. or 2574 Cedar Ave.

• On calendar days that are odd numbers (examples July 27 or Aug. 19), the odd side of the street CAN sprinkle lawns. Examples: 1247 Maple St. or 2561 18th Ave.

Learn more

—via City of Minneapolis

We went on a scavenger hunt to find every little library in Waite Park

Robert Doze admits he was skeptical when his wife Judith proposed building a Little Free Library — did they really need the clutter in their front yard?

A few years later, the popularity of their curbside box has made him a believer. He’s even thinking about adding a lower level for younger readers.

“It’s been a good conversational thing — for people you know and people you don’t know,” Doze said of their blue-and-white box on McKinley Street.

The Dozes are part of a global movement that started a little over a decade ago in Hudson, Wisconsin. Todd Bol built the first book-sharing cubby, shaped like a one-room schoolhouse, and put it on a post in his front yard.

Little Free Library incorporated as a nonprofit in 2010 and now boasts more than 100,000 registered libraries in more than 100 countries worldwide, with a mission of building community, inspiring readers, and expanding book access. 

In the Waite Park neighborhood, curious readers can find at least 20 of the boxes, not counting the similar ones that have sprung up to share food or art supplies. The libraries’ contents range from cookbooks and religious texts to mass market paperbacks and critically acclaimed hardcovers.

“It’s been fun to see what shows up,” said Elizabeth Zaccardi, who inherited a rustic-themed Little Free Library when she and her husband Tony bought their home on the 3100 block of Lincoln Street. On a recent weekend, the lopsided pile of books in their box included children’s picture books, parenting guides, the second Chronicles of Narnia book, and a David Sedaris collection.

“It’s been fun to see what shows up.”

— Elizabeth Zaccardi, 3100 block of Lincoln

The libraries’ designs are as varied as the media they contain. Greg Flanagan said it was his 7-year-old daughter’s idea to make their library on the corner of 31st and Hayes look like King Friday XIII’s castle from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. 

“The design is fun. If people notice what it is, they comment,” Flanagan said.

He and his wife collect a lot of books and tend to share more than they take, but their daughter finds a steady stream of children’s books to read and return. And for all three of them it’s been a way to meet from their front yard.

“I think it adds to getting to know your neighbors,” Flanagan said.

The small spaces have evolved to take on new uses and missions in recent years. At the start of the coronavirus pandemic last spring, for example, some began to use the boxes as a place to share non-perishable food.

Michelle Filkins has had her library on the corner of 32nd and Cleveland for about seven years. She recently began participating in a Little Free Library program called Read in Color, a new initiative to bring diverse books to its book-sharing boxes. With support from the nonprofit, Filkins is working to stock her library with diverse authors, but the community is contributing as well.

“I’ve been happy to find that not only are people putting in engineering textbooks from 1980 or whatever they found in the garage in a musty box, but they’re also putting in new titles, often by diverse authors,” Filkins said. “It suggests to me that people are buying into the idea that we really should try to read outside of our own lived experience.”

—Photos and words by Dan Haugen