Gardening Thread

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I dug out about 6 massive hostas last year for free from a gardener who didn't want them where they were. I am anxious to see if they come back . Planted them in various locations.
 
Don't be anxious. Be expectant. Some stuff is super-persistent. Hostas, in general, are those.

I live on a little old street, in a little old town. There have always been, especially in early years, plant sharers and traders. My Dad found one lovely hosta, name escapes me, late bloomer, huge leaves, white flowers, scented. There's probably a dozen of these prominently in front yards, all came from one plant. I pay for stuff, but I prefer trading stuff...

And there's the "house on the corner". Owned by a succession of people I knew, gardeners, got crazier and crazier, no grass, perennials, mainly of the uncontrollable type, everywhere. So, in one of those reversals of fortune, last owner sold, and was bought by someone who decided to turn it into a rental duplex, with the usual "look after the lawn" provisos. Well, no lawn, no gardeners, things went to hell pretty quickly. No hostas, but some roses, a lot of centaurea, etc. So. Call in serious reinforcements. Kill everything (without giving any neighbours chance to grab/share), then roll down the heavy green sod.

This year, I'm watching Cathy's garden come up. There's no grass, or very little. There's a ton of violets, the centaurea are just waiting, I can see lots of echinacea leaves...
 
I have found that people pay good money for common houseplants. Have been multiplying my jade plant and selling them for $5 a piece ( my plants look healthier than those tiny things in the stores). I also have rebutia cacti that multiply generously- I got the original plant when I was 16 and it blooms every year ( actually I had to leave the original plant with my mother in Germany, but one year she smuggled a tiny off shot into Canada when she came to visit).
 
And Pinga you can be really tough with hosta. They are very sturdy. We dug ours up last year, split them in two or three and replanted them. No problem. The only issue with them is that snails love certain ones. So sometimes you have to experiment to find which ones the snails don’t like.
 
I am also surprised about people and lawns being turned into gardens. It’s a ton of work. Perennials don’t just grow and just leave them. If you do you get an overgrown wild mess. We had a place down the streets from us. Lawn turned into a lovely garden. House became rented. And over the five or so years we lived them the garden just disappeared, It just became all big weeds with a scraggly rose or two trying to survive

we had a large bed, separated from grass by a stone walkway. we turned it into a thyme bed. Several different types of thyme and sedum plants. Purple, pink, white, red....... looked gorgeous. For a year. Then the grass started. Blown in from the mower. And the plants were so dense it was hours of work to pull it out piece by piece. After a couple of years I gave up. I like gardening but don’t want to spend hours and hours pulling grass. Instead we planted low, spreading roses. In mulch. Easy to weed, except for the scratches.
 
I too converted one side of our front lawn at the old house. Primarily hostas with lots of mulch. It was under a city maple and even grass barely grew. Hostas did great. Had some huge ones that have ended up in many gardens of family (elegans) plus traditional ones got from my mother's garden and unique ones that I had purchased.
 
Found a lovely garden with some interesting plants that, as I have discovered through conversation with the gardener, regularly sells plants in spring.

This year she was purging a good size section of garden to put cement around her pond.

I bought approx 40 plants, and she is now texting me for anything unique she is separating.

She used to work at a local greenhouse. Has been retired for a number of years.

Then my brother-in-law brought over plants from his bed he knew I didn't have. I am trying iris' ar our driveway entranceway .

So , hips are getting a workout with the planting
 
I do love iris’. So many colours and sizes. But they don’t like to be moved around too much. They work well with day lillies as the tall stalks blend together and while the iris leaves brown off the day lillies stay green longer

i love watching things green up, though cold weather is headed our way on Wednesday. Our fields are close to needing to be cut. The trees have little leaves, tiny shoots are up.

I generally plant my veggies in pretty organized rows. I find it easier to tell weeds from plants for me to gather for dinner. But this year I am going to try putting extra radish seeds in with my tomatoes and nasturims in with my squash to see how they fair. I am also going to run a row of corn. I doubt I will get to eat it, seems to attract raccoons but I do love watching it grow. And if this mess ever ends , hopeful our kids can come up and we can have a corn roast. And apparently alysum is good to plant with lettuce

my problem is sorting all the lettuce leaves from the non lettuce things when I am washing it.
 
@Pinga! Now that's a great gardener to know!! So terrific you made that contact - can't wait to see your property next year with all the beautiful new additions you keep making.

PS - Edit - sorry @JayneWonders - I reverted to your former name!
 
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I finally conceded today to the evil squirrels that are damaging my beautiful wine coloured hellebore in the back yard. They continue to nip off the buds & flowers. So I decided to try moving it to the front garden where there 'seems' to be less squirrel activity ... we shall see. It had a huge root ball, so fingers crossed.
 
Best thing hubby bought himself twenty years ago was a cheap pick up Truck. Loves going to get a load of mulch or wood chips. I had a chipper but got rid of it. Easier to get a load in the truck
 
Godfather had a good sized one, because he had about 10 acres of pine to manage, so lot of limbing, and uprooting of other trees. For many years, I did not return from my yearly trip to the cabin without a trunk full of: rocks, wood chips and cedar rounds (for starting the bbq).
 
I guess I've got wood chips on my mind - as I was in the garden today I recognized that it's time to top up mine that border the fence in order to keep the garden at bay & give me a space to walk. The delivery fee is the killer! My last load got picked up by a friend who had her trailer home from the cottage & she kindly retrieved it for me. $50 for a yard of maple wood chips + $60 delivery fee + tax = $124.00! Ouch! I tried a few years ago to get a tree company that was doing work in the area to leave me some chips - they said sure - but you'll have to take the total truck load! LOL
 
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