Why I Oughta...

Proven Winners has come out with their 2023 plants of the year recently and the list includes a few things of note (for me) that are worth getting to know a bit. Before I run through the ones that standout to me, I thought it was important to remind (myself) what Proven Winners uses as their criteria.  Now...Proven Winners is in the business of selling A LOT of plants, so what they say are their 'winners' are grounded in that:  commerce.  But... here's what they say are their criteria :   Easy to grow Iconic Readily available Outstanding landscape performance Easy to grow...for who?  Them...in their greenhouses?  Or, me the intermediate gardener with a shade-filled yard that lacks irrigation in Zone 5b?   Readily available speaks to their ease of growing, so they're really saying 'easy to grow' twice. That last one:  outstanding performance.  This one is the key.  Again...performance of what?   There are other groups who name X of the year - like the Perennial

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a Shadowlands Empress Wu hosta from Home Depot and didn't really have a plan for where to put it in the garden.  It was small (1 gallon nursery pot) and inexpensive ($4.99), and I knew that it was a 'large' hosta, so I grabbed it and figured I'd sort the location later.  After keeping it in the shade and keeping it watered for a while, last week, I decided to plant it in the front yard bed - out front of the large Maple tree.  That's it in the photo above - the second from the left - in a series of hostas.  When we did our initial planting, the guys at Green Grass planted three hostas and while they've survived, I don't think that they've thrived here.   Why? I'm thinking that is because they're competing for resources with the tree?  That...or they are a miniature hosta variety.  Planted it between a couple of them and a little bit further back - closer to the tree.  If you read that original post on the S