Canadian Gardening: Introducing myself with some before & after pics, 1 by sanannie

sanannie wrote:
I just completed a hosta trade with ViolaAnn who lives about an hour's drive from me. She picked up her hostas yesterday at my place and encouraged me to post here just to say hello. I've lurked here for a while but now I have a chance to pop in and say hi. Hi!!!!

I first met ViolaAnn when I picked up my hostas from her place a couple of weeks ago. She's a very interesting, busy and generous lady and I enjoyed touring her gardens. Highlights were the many hostas, the 7' high tomatoes staked to poles, the eggplants growing on her patio and especially her cute grand-twins who were visiting for the day!

As for me, I've been gardening about 12 years here on a rural property in the Ottawa Valley. I just recently got addicted to hosta but I love all well-behaved perennials especially daylilies, lilies, heucheras and peonies. When I got the gardening bug the kids were small and we had just built this house so it was just a pile of sand and really overwhelming at first, but I kept pluggin' away a little each year and started seeing some results, which kept me going. If I have to peg a style to my garden I would call it rustic. I guess I went rustic because I like the look of old things, and rustic seems to suit our property, but mainly, because rustic meant I could build/make things for my garden myself (hubby was not interested back then)....rustic is supposed to look imperfect, right? LOL

I've enjoyed looking at everyone's gardens so I thought maybe you'd like to see a few before and after pics. When I assembled the pics it gave me a sense of achievement, you know, and I could say, hmmmm yeah, all that work accomplished something.....not that I consider my garden done! I don't think our gardens will ever be done will they? For mine, I hope not, it's too much fun. There's always something to learn and some new plant to try.

OK here's the pics:

In this first before/after you can tell it's the same view because of the birch trees in the background!