Why I Oughta...

One of the big planting projects that I have tee'd up for this Summer is to plant a series of boxwoods underneath the pair of espalier'ed Greenspire Linden trees to add some structure and four-season interest with evergreen shrubs.  One of the things that I've learned from observing the garden over all four seasons is that while I claim to be a 'hosta gardener', I have begun to fall out of love with them (just a little bit).  Why?  Because they totally disappear during the late Fall, Winter and early Spring.  Sure...there's still a lot to love - they grow in the shade, are all-about-that-foliage, their Spring emergence is a fun little gardening moment and...they're forever dividable (meaning...they can be endlessly divided every Fall).  But, when I look at my beds during the month of January or February or March...and you didn't know they were planted out, one might think that the beds were totally empty.  As the hostas disappear. All that to say...I don

Fall is - maybe - the most productive I'm in the garden all season.  The cool temperatures sure help.  But, so does the fact that you can get pretty great deals on plants at the nursery in October.  And...couple that with this being the best time to divide perennials means I'm out there making lots of additions to the beds. My 'NEW free plants' scorecard this fall reads like this:  2 hostas under the Oak , 2 Bressingham Blues by the Viburnums and 2 Lancifolia Hostas in the fern garden .   That's six new plants so far. But, the past weekend saw even more dividing and transplanting.  First up, the hostas that are sitting under the Frans Fontaine Columnar Hornbeams.  They've struggled from what I think is either sunburn or frost burn the past few years.  They are very likely getting TOO MUCH sun.  Below is a photo showing a larger hosta in the middle with my spade showing how I was going to divide this one.  And, to the right is a smaller hosta that isn't thri

This is the third in a series of posts showing a few of the various hosta divisions that I've been doing lately in our backyard.  First was the two (new) hostas that I tucked in around the big Oak tree in our south border.   Then, the two (new) Bressingham Blue hostas that I transplanted over on the northside by the Doublefile Viburnum treeform .  Today's 'free plants' post shows off two (new) Lancifolia hostas that I took from a three-way division out by the original Autumn Ferns.   Below is a photo that shows the three Lancifolia Hostas amongst some other foliage.  The original location is in the front/center of the photo.  And the two new ones are both directly 'behind' and 'behind and to the left' of the original/mother hosta.   They look droop-y right now, but Lancifolia hostas are vigorous growers, so I'm not worried about them.  They'll show up strong come Spring. Below is the 'before' look at this area.  You can see the trio of