Park Seed’s Flower Day

So, yesterday Mom & I went to Flower Day at Park Seed in Hodges, SC (near Greenwood). I was very excited when I found out that Mom & I were going to go together. My mom, who gardened with us when we were children, is a great gardener and great mother. Further, she is a SC Master Gardener and she teaches Jr Master Gardener classes as well as 4-H events. Mom & I went down and explored the experimental gardens and got to see new plants such as SunPatiens (think Impatiens that like sun, but with different numbers of petals); they were very pretty and available in a variety of colors. Mom & I spent 5hrs at Park Seed exploring and looking at plants. I got to visit some of their shade gardens to get ideas for our property since we do have 10 fully mature pecan trees on our property … hence Lots of shade! I loved the lamb's ear that they had growing in the shade gardens; it had lush large soft leaves. We also bought a Vibe-full of plants to bring home and add to our own gardens. I’ve been reading a lot about cottage gardens lately and planning some for our house since it is an older house (built in the 30’s) and I find the cottage gardens particularly attractive! For the cottage garden, I got coneflowers, coneflower seed, lavender seed, blanket flower seed, salvia, and astilbe. I also got some butterfly weeds to attract butterflies for pollination as well as a new rose (I Finally got a Peace rose … I’m super excited!) For the shade gardens, I got some blue mouse ears hostas (yes, those of you who know me know I LOVE hostas) and ‘brownies’ heuchera (coral bells) to add some more color to the shade gardens. I also got a few more plants, but I won’t bore you with all the details! But, needless to say, Mom & I had such fun that we’re planning on going again next year and hopefully we’ll be able to go to the Master Gardener preview day since I’ll hopefully have my Master Gardener’s license by then.

Hostas

So, one of the most abundant plants at our house is hosta. I love hostas. They make such beautiful displays of foliage. They do bloom late in the summer upon tall spikes, but I prefer them without the blooms (I always want to cut off those long spikes!) Now, don't get me wrong, I do love flowers, just not a big fan of the hosta's. When we moved into our house, we had several fully mature hostas. As with most perennials bulbs/tubers/rhizomes, once plants mature, they will need to be divided or split. This is relatively easy to do. Hostas are very hardy plants so they can essentially be divided anytime, but spring (just post emerging of leaves) or in the fall once they're past their peak are the recommended times. When we divide ours, we dig them up, lay them on a hard surface and use either a shovel or a machete (or large kitchen knife) to cut them apart. If the hosta roots have not become highly entangled, you may be able to pull them apart by hand, which is advantageous to the plant. You will need to be careful to water them for the first 2 weeks post-division as they have few roots than they previously did and are more prone to wilting in spring sun. If you have hostas, and you notice in the spring when they start emerging, that they have a doughnut shape (none emerging in the center), you know that it is Definitely time to split them! The reason there are none in the center is that they have died. We had this problem with all of our hostas that were present at our house when we moved in. We are dividing them up (the last one we divided into 8 plants and put into a new shade garden). While not recommended, and one must be Very careful if doing this, some hostas cultivars can be grown in the sun. We have a bank to the west side of our giant bonsai trees and we tilled, fertilized, limed and planted about 80 hostas (undulata) along it. Only about 80% of them survived and we have a few that we stored back as we knew this would happen. The hostas are ok once they have matured in the full sun, but hostas will always prefer part-shade to shade. The hostas in front of our house are full sun, however, they are also 2.5ft in diameter and have been there since several years before we bought our house. Enough ramblings about hostas! If you have questions, please let me know .... We currently have the following hostas in our yard: 'Francee' (green with white edging), 'Undulata' (white stripe down center of green leaves), a blue hosta with wavy crimped edges (unsure of variety), and two reverse variegated hosta (green with wide white centers) that resembles 'loyalist' or 'dancing in the rain', but I'm unsure of the exact variety that are planted on either side of our back door. Slugs enjoy hostas (as do deer). Slugs don't kill them, however, they do like to eat holes in hosta leaves (thick-leafed hostas are more slug resistant than thin-leafed varieties).

Garden start -- Spring 2007

So, I grew up with a garden ... it was how mom kept the three of us occupied after school ... and we learned a lot from it ... a lot that I don't think we ever really realized we'd use, but now both my sister and I have a garden.

So when we bought our house, it had very little curb appeal. The biggest curb appeal came from the 10 fully mature pecan trees that were planted with the house in the early 30s that make two lines down the property, one on each side of the house. There's also a row of cedar bonsai trees. strange, I know; that was my thought the first year that I lived here, but they're growing on me. There are 3 Bradford pear trees in the front of the property (near the road). And, finally, there were hostas in front of the house (not shown in the pictures below since it was March and they hadn't come up yet) ... yep .... that's it! that's all there was. It was a foreclosure property and had lots of work to do on the landscaping.

Our first project was to bring some color to the front porch, and to do this we used the 3 hydrangeas that were bought for our wedding. We put these in concrete planters from the wedding; though since then we've bought a 4th and planted them at the two front corners of the house and on either side of the steps leading to the front porch.

And, while not gardening, though completely necessary, we changed the color (both main and trim) of the house to give a better palate for me to plant against as well as we simply didn't like the old color scheme! (see photos below)