Hostas - Palntain lilies

The Phactors have a lot of shade provided by several notable big trees.  And you do not have perennials in your shady garden without a healthy representation of Hostas.  In one area the big varieties grow; in another area next to the patio, the little varieties grow.  We make no attempt to collect or represent anything more diverse; just a bunch of plants that appealed to us at the time (oh, pretty!), for some morphological diversity to make things interesting.  Over the weekend a number of plants were dug and replanted in an attempt to make them happier, to grow better and look better.  A few other plants were mover around also.  It's always funny how some plants respond so well to new locations, a others show their displeasure by dying.  And then there is the worst part.  In a moment of insanity, TPP bought the Ms. the massive tome ( over 1000 pages) called the Hostapedia.  And now an effort is being made to keep track of the names of varieties just for the heck of it.  You can also download the definitive hosta list with probably almost 30,000 varieties, of which our gardens have a not paltry 65 varieties in a very asymmetrical distribution among plants having several hundred really old fashioned varieties that came with the property, and then 1 or two of all the rest.  This helps describe both our hobby and senior exercise program.

Friday fabulous flower - alotta hosta

A street side garden is about 60 feet long and 10-15 feet wide filled almost solidly with a big old hostas.  They've been there for decades and the bed has been diversified under our tutelage, but there are still a lot of hosta, all the same, some big old plain, tough variety.  They've suffered a bit after the removal of some dying spruces and white ashes exposed them to a lot more sunlight although this image doesn't show that.  But what with all the rain this June (10.75 inches total, 2.5 times average), and cool weather, the bed is doing just fine so far, and just now it displays a sea of blue flowers that is quite spectacular even when just getting going.  Nothing wrong with some massed, if not massive, plantings. 

End of May

May thirty-oneth - the end of May, the beginning of summer, and very appropriately today was a hot, dry summer day. All of the gardens, all of the new plants, need water.  The last two "rain events" have defied the weather reports, beat the odds (rain 80-90% likely) and not a drop fell even though heavy clouds surrounded the area and thunder was quite close. TPP hates to start watering so early in the season, but what you gonna do?  When you plant, you water, or you buy again, and plant again. Yesterday evening  Mrs. Phactor sprinted out of the back door and out to her perennial garden to chase a woodchuck out and save her bell flowers. Apparently Campanula is like candy, and although the bunnies have been awful, her bellflowers were not converted into bun-bun salad and a decent flowering was anticipated. A newly arrived resident, a woodchuck, would change all of that.  It took three tries, and most of an apple as bait, but the woodchuck relocation was successful within 12 hrs of its initiation; the bellflower will flower. Mrs. Phactor spent the day relocating hosta and removing weeds. Right now a Calycanthus-Sinocalycanthus hybrid, an American snowbell, wild columbine, pentstemons, yellow indigos, and Mrs. Phactor's iris areekeeping the gardens colorful. And indeed, the view was enjoyed most fully with a couple of margaritas. Isn't that what gardens are for?

May Day! Gorilla gardening day!

OK, OK, TPP knows it's guerilla not gorilla; thank Captain Ron and Martin Short for somehow implanting that transposition in my head. Elected morons are also trying to declare May 1 Unconstitutional Day of Prayer in the USA, and our nation and the world would be a much better place if only they would embrace May first as Guerilla Gardening Day.  To celebrate you only need go plant something nice on some unused little plot of public land.  Years ago TPP up dug some bulbs while planting something else, and the bulbs, done for the season, were planted along side of a jogging/biking/walking trail, and still they bloom there every spring (they be crocus).  So get with the program and make the world a greener place. This year the Phactors are relocating several dozen old standard hostas that thrived in the shade of several old spruce that were just recently basal pruned, so shade they give no more. Some friends have volunteered to plant some along side a different section of the same trial, and no gorilla could do that.

How many hosta?

No this isn't really a quiz because someone would have to know the answer, and it isn't going to be TPP doing the counting.  A long time ago someone planted quite a few hosta along about 60 feet of our garden's border with the front sidewalk underneath some old spruce trees. These are your plain old, moderately large "plantain" hosta, each and everyone the same.  They are tough as nails and during their flowering they make a pretty spectacular drift of blue flowers.  You don't have to worry about them, you don't have to baby them, you don't have to do hardly anything but cut off the old bloom stalks, and yet they flower like this each and every year.  Pretty hard to complain about that, eh? Now is it hosta (pl.) or hostas?