Meeting Connie | 60 Years of Garden Tips | Prairie Yard & Garden 3813

Connie Anderson, a passionate gardener from Tracy, Minnesota, has been nurturing plants for over 60 years. Her gardening journey began as a child involved in 4-H flower gardening, influenced by her father’s straightforward philosophy of only growing what was edible. With a natural talent for plant propagation honed through years of experience and encouragement from neighbors, Connie eventually established her own greenhouses after working at a local nursery. Despite moving several times, she continued to create thriving gardens, adapting to challenges such as relocating to a lakehouse where deer feasted on her beloved plants. Eventually, in 2012, she found a beautiful home in town with ample space for her extensive collection of hostas, which numbered over 200 varieties.

Since relocating, Connie has transformed her new property, which started as a clay-filled yard with minimal vegetation, into a vibrant garden oasis. By bringing in good soil and planting her cherished hostas, she successfully established both sun and shade gardens, especially after removing old box elder trees that had previously dominated the landscape. In addition to her plant collections, Connie has adorned her garden with various statues and whimsical decor sourced from yard sales and thoughtful gifts from her children and neighbors. Today, she enjoys a picturesque view from her deck, cherishing the fruits of her labor as she continues to grow and share her gardening expertise with others.

Prairie Yard & Garden airs weekly on Pioneer PBS at 7:30 p.m. CST on Thursday evenings. It also drops here on YouTube on the same day.

People living within Pioneer PBS’s viewing area are able to livestream the station online at pioneer.org/live

First aired in 1987, Prairie Yard & Garden is a 30-minute television show about gardening in the Upper Midwest. Each season, the crew travels the state to meet with researchers, gardening and nursery professionals, educators and ordinary backyard gardeners to discuss specific issues in horticulture, landscaping and a host of topics in gardening.

Produced by Pioneer Pioneer PBS, Prairie Yard & Garden (PY&G) is a Midwest gardening program hosted by Mary Holm, produced and edited by Mike Cihak, with additional videography by Tim Bakken and production assistants Gorden McIntosh and Vivian Heltemes. Production sponsorship is provided by Minnesota Grown, Heartland Motor Company, ACIRA, Shalom Hill Farm, Friends of Prairie Yard & Garden and members of Pioneer PBS. If you enjoy PY&G, become a friend of PY&G by filling out a Google Form: https://forms.gle/KDbx4Eyzo3HZ8d1W6.

Stream us on the:
PY&G website – pioneer.org/pyg
PBS app – pioneer.org/pbsapp/
Pioneer PBS Video Portal – video.pioneer.org/show/prairie-yard-garden/

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