The Hosta Bed

Late May 2014, having split a half dozen hostas the previous year, It appears that at least a dozen or more need splitting this year, as soon as possible.

Preparing for Winter

With the Hostas now well past their prime, it is time to bed them down for the winter. This is done quite simply by mulching them down with a lawnmower (wheels set high) and then spreading a mulched layer of leaves over the entire garden, to a depth of at least four or five inches.

Free Hostas!

Nothing like having someone toss out three big hostas in the local Oxford County free composting drop off area at the water tower just around the corner! Was I going to allow these plants to rot into compost? Not a chance! Here is how they look split up, after giving away about one-third of each to family and friends!

Beneath The Treehouse

This is a view of a portion of the garden in the corner that the treehouse is located in. This area has been in the works for a couple of seasons, while I determined what kind of access I needed into the corner for getting to the treehouse. I finally settled on a curved garden bed with a grass walkthrough in the middle, each side of which will be located a few small hostas, four sedums, as well as a backdrop of ferns and other plants.

Hosta La Vista - Stop Motion Fun

Here is my first pathetic attempt at doing a bit of simple 'stop motion' style photography, as the hosta bed comes to life in the backyard. I have learned that it is important to take the photographs about the same time of day, hopefully in similar lighting condtions. It would probably also be more effective to photograph one plant, or a very small group, rather than a whole garden bed.

Rudi's Little Garden

A view of the little corner garden Rudi and I built last year. This spot originally had some evergreen groundcover, a small out of control tree, and a creeping vine, and I simply had never maintained it. So two summers ago, I dug it all out, and started from scratch.

Another Shady Story

Spent some time at the cottage, and this is the second season for my Hosta garden that I planted on the north side of the house. This area gets full sun for about two or three hours a day at most, so the only option is shade plants. I grew tired of simply having sparse grass and weeds growing right up to the side of the house, so now I have a neat little collection of Hostas, along with some sparse grass and weeds! Hooray! I am quite amazed at the resiliance of these little plants, as they were only planted last year, and some of them were root cuttings with only a few pathetic leaves that I gave little chance of survival. But here they are, climate zone 3A, as if it were the nicest spot on the planet!

Another View

This is a different view of the Hosta bed at the back fenceline of the property, taken from the East side, rather than the West. Unlike the previous photo two posts previous, this photo also includes many of the lower branches of the White Spruce trees that line the back fence, and gives a better idea of the appearance of the garden. It is also evident here the fact that quite a few of the Hostas are very mature, some having been in location for three or four years, wheras a number of others are in either their first or second season. All in all, I don't think this part of the garden looks half bad. If you are wondering, the white fluffy thing at the extreme left near the back is the back end of buddy the wonder poodle.

A Little Bit Of Work

I returned to work on the East side of the garden, which hasn't seen much attention recently. I had started a few years back building up compost, and introducing Day-Lilies against the fence line, and last year planted the Hostas in a staggered row. This year the area got completely overridden by weeds, so I spent a few hours and scraped all the weeds back, rearranged the Hostas and a few Karl Foerster reed grasses I had recently planted, then spread newspaper over all the soil, and placed a thin layer of compost mulch on top. It was amazing what three solid hours of work accomplished, as the area went from a total mess to at least some semblance of order! I am also in the process of installing a 'secret path' through most of the garden beds, and in this particular bed it will comprise log 'stepping stones' placed in a sinuous path. You can see the path in the middle of the photo, with buddy the wonder poodle hunting out his culinary delight - fresh dandelion root! To the right are the Hosta's, and further right the reed grass, and the Day Lilies. In the summer I will build the bed out to the left, probably with Astilbe and Huechera, for an added splash of colour.

The West Side Story

After the North side, the West side of a building probably gets the least amount of direct sun, usually limited to 1 PM and later in the afternoon. The problem with our West side is the fact that there are numerous trees to the South and West which limit direct sunlight to less than an hour, with the rest of the day being in deep shade or dappled shade. When we bought the house, there were three Junipers centred in front of the chimney, a couple of indeterminate dead shrubs, and two small Yews in front of each window, along with a few other plants. With the lack of sunlight, the original inhabitants here were getting quite spindly and pathetic, so three years ago I cut them all down and dug them out. The Rhododendron, the tall blue/green Hostas and the gold/green minis were planted two summers ago, while the new white Hostas went in this year. The small Japanese Maple (a shade loving tree if there ever was one) was originally planted in a part shade spot with full afternoon sun (sun from noon til 5) and was doing quite well, but I decided to relocate it here, as I have another tree planned for its original location. Another Rhododendron will be located in front of the other window, to balance the first. The grass between the garden bed and the driveway is patchy, and I am in the process of transplanting sod from other areas in the back yard to improve the area.