Hostas - a good start



Before



Our garden has come a long way.  When we first bought the house, the shady border around the yard was covered in bark mulch and nothing else.   It had been used as play areas for the previous owner's children and it looked like it.  We really were starting with nothing but bare shady areas and not what I would consider the best soil.

 

After





I didn't realize that we actually had nice woodland soil that was good for shade plants, it just needed a little perk-up.  The ground drained quickly, it had a good mix of fir needle duff and dark soil and the shade changed and shifted depending on the time of day.  All it really needed was regular water, some compost and a little work to turn it into a lush shade garden.



Giant Hostas

  

Back then I was pretty new at shade gardening and I asked myself the question everyone does when faced with a wall of shade - what do I do with this???  And what was the answer??  Hostas!!!  Yep, I bought some hostas - ok, so I bought a lot of hostas.  And not just the small ones, I got some of the young giant ones and hoped they'd grow into massive plants some day, which they gradually did. 



Note to readers - if the tag says the hosta is a giant, believe the label. Some hostas  get huge.

  



I know...everyone starts with hostas and people often roll their eyes and say "hostas are boring" but they are great anchor plants in a shade garden - and a good beginner plant when learning to grow in the shade.  They are reliable, easy to grow, forgive your mistakes, are tolerant of deep shade as well as bright shade and they'll let move them around later on (if you can get them out of the ground).  Seriously, hostas are very hard to kill, as long as you keep them in the shade.



Hostas make a great backdrop for unique plants or yard art.  I use the heart shaped leaves of hostas to create the green background that show off my spiky lime green grasses or rectangular podophyllums.  Even a wave of impatiens look impressive against the smooth green of background hostas.  When I need a little height, I put them in a pot and put other plants in front of the pot - it's a form of cheating, but it works great in the garden. 



So how do you keep hostas?  You can plant them in the shade and let them be.  Really, you can.  If you want them to grow big, then water them regularly, give them some compost in the early spring (Feb/March here) and fertilize them with 16-16-16 in early spring and August.   

Tibetan Poppies



Balloon Dogs running through Black Mondo Grass

So I've decided to start a gardening blog.  It seems I have several gardening tricks that are successful enough that friends and family are asking for them - and a blog seemed like a good way to share that information.  We'll see how it goes. 

Right now things are huge and a little out of control in the garden, but I'll get to that a little later. 


As usual, our spring/summer lurches along with some cold wet days and some cool cloudy dry days...followed by a warm sunny day that causes everything to grow frantically.  I find this pattern erratic and the effects hard to predict, but the plants seem to love it.




Tibetan Blue Poppy



 

Though our few sun loving plants are slow growing this year, our shade loving Tibetan Blue Poppies (Meconopsis betonicifolia) are up and flowering.  They get enough morning sun to make them happy, while protecting them from the 'real' sunshine during the day - when we get a full day of sunshine, that is.

Our Himalayan Blue Poppies (Meconopsis 'Lingholm') are not old enough to flower yet, so we wait and watch as they grow - maybe next year.