Thinning the Herd

There is nothing like misplacing a metaphor.
I never thought that hosta could get pushed around. We have myrtle growing around our hosta patches, but not in them because the hosta blocks all the light. That and I bury it in sweet peet every year. Last year we had a couple ferns and ligularia find their way into the hosta. That was fine. Both plants added a little height and color variance to the hosta beds. I never thought they could muscle any of our hosta. I figured it would be a fight to see who unfurled first. I was confident that the hosta would prevail.
Yesterday we had a break in the weather from a week of rain, so garden maintenance was in order. Pat and I dug ferns and ligularia out of the hosta patches. So much for letting the plants fight it out, survival of the strongest stuff. That just was not going to happen. We, well actually I, wanted to insure garden hegemony for the hosta. I still like ligularia and ferns and they will always have a place in our garden. Pat throws around the term “invasive” and “that’s what you get” a lot when talking about ferns and ligularia.
All the plants we dug up aren’t going to waste. A friend of ours is starting a new household and needs a shade garden. And as everyone knows, you always need hosta, ferns, and ligularia. She gets some irises for her sunny area.
I left a few ferns and ligularia because I'm really weak kneed and sentimental for them. You can remind me about it next year.

wordless wednesday

all hosta all the time

While our garden does have things other than hosta, you can guess what my favorite plants are. When I get a new plant, I always ask myself how it works with hosta. I guess you could say that I garden in the shadows and Pat gardens in the sunshine. It didn’t start out that way. Before we moved to Cleveland I had never planted anything. Oh, I could build a great raised bed and fill it up with dirt, but that was it.

The nudge I needed to bring out the hidden gardener (what a great name for a garden blog) was the mother-in-law, Shirley. Shirley always had wonderful looking gardens. She is the hosta queen of Elmhurst. She brought mama and papa hosta, some ferns and some day lilies on her first visit. I planted them and guess what, I didn’t kill them. They survived and thrived. Now based on the plants, you may say the bar wasn’t set too high. Actually the bar was a stick on the ground. The important thing was I passed the test. I could grow stuff. Well as you all know (at least in the deepest reaches of your gardening dreams) there is never too much stuff, especially if the stuff consists of beautiful plants.

When Pat and I joined our first garden club, I came to the realization that I had to know the names of plants. And I threw away all those little plastic sticks. At Blotanical I had to have at least a passing understanding of what I grew. I promise if I ever buy another hosta, I’ll keep the ID sticks. Here’s some of our hosta.

Big Blue Lord of the Hosta Patch

Hello, Goodbye, and a Baby Announcement.

It's always sad when a flower drops its last petal. Wouldn't it be neat if all our flowers held their blooms all spring and summer long? The tulips and daffodils are gone. The lilacs are on their last leg. Spring marches on. But, it's always very cool when you get the first bloom of another flower. We have our first day lily. I am clueless as to how many we have. It's a bunch, different kinds and sizes. Whenever we need some day lilies, we just split some off from wherever it's overgrown. Alas, the marsh marigold lost its last petal yesterday. The last flower came from a seedling, so this guy should expand pretty quickly.
Pat and I feed the animals. Some are invited like ducks and birds. Some aren't, like rabbits and deer. But, you can't get one without the other. Every year we are treated to baby ducks. It's fun to watch them running around the yard. When mama duck senses danger, they are off and running. The pic is out of focus because it was one of those, run quick, find the camera and get the pic.

Wordless Wednesday

stuff that's not hosta

I’m in a funk, have been for a while. This time of year I’m normally a non-stop yard machine, weeding, digging, moving plants, more weeding. Engaged in all the stuff that brings me joy. Yeah, even weeding brings me joy. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I walk the yard every day, weeding and taking pictures. I still have a “to do” list that gets longer every day, but something is missing. Duh! Pat’s what missing. My gardening partner, the one who gives my gardening meaning (nice way of saying she tells me what to do, huh.) is missing. She is nowhere to be found. How can I garden like this? There is no one who can look at the garden and tell me what to do like Pat.

Pat’s not really missing. She is ensconced upstairs studying for a statistics final. Doesn’t the professor realize that there is gardening to do? We have 55 containers to plant and a veggie garden to plant.

With all the April and May rain, we’ve got stuff growing all over. The yard looks so green and peaceful I could fall asleep in any of the chairs we have outside. But the rain also was good to the weeds. Now I know that one person’s weed is another’s cherished plant. If that idiom is really true, I’d like to find those guys and trade out plants. This is what I really need Pat for. She is Nero to everything in the garden. If a plant has a pretty flower or an interesting leaf, I’ll let it stay. It probably stems from the time at our first house where I weeded all her annuals. Well I was young and not so smart.

Contrary to what some friends and relatives think, we do have more than hosta in the back yard. Now it’s hard to take a picture without some hosta in the background so try to ignore them. Wow, I can actually identify some of the plants. We have solomon's seal, lily of the valley, azeleas, chives, brunerra and marsh marigold.

I donno.

I donno.

Once again, I donno. This is why I miss Pat.

This marsh marigold is one year old. It was no larger than the little guy on the left. It seems to self seed like crazy so we could probably just wait a couple years till it reaches critical mass. Or we could go out and get 2 or 3 more.

We have strawberries on the far side of the berm as a ground cover. The wind or birds started this one 30 feet away.

furry friends?

I was reading in the sun room when movement caught my eye. I spotted a rabbit sneaking through the pachysandra. I think sneaking is the right term, because rabbits don't come to visit. These nefarious critters come to eat. Pat noticed two more rabbits on the far side of a planting area. "Oh, look, the rabbits are bouncing around. They're playing or mating." "Or eating our hosta" I said. Once again we confront the age old rabbit dichotomy. Are rabbits the cute furry creatures who lay eggs on Easter morning and people love? Or are they the scourge of every gardener? In our house, they are both. I guess it depends on what they are eating. I need to eat more oranges because I need the peels.