Accessible Gardening: My garden's a tight space..., 1 by 1gardengram

1gardengram wrote:
Dorothie--I have started two hosta beds recently. I had purchased some hostas last fall and wintered them over in big pots pushed up against the warmest brick wall and then heavily mulched. Prior to that I had purchased a couple of unnamed collections from ebay and just scattered them around the yard and they have survived in spite of my neglect of them.

I was moving hostas to make a bed and had some from those collections I could not identify, so sent in pictures for ID help. Come to find out, one of them had the hosta virus and I had used the same tools on all 15 or 20 hostas I had just moved. Those are all confined to one bed and the sick one is long gone. At least I'll know which ones to keep track of for the disease. I learned a very valuable lesson about remembering to clean tools between plants. All my Regal Splendor are in there along with a mixture of other pretties, not all of which are identified yet. They are under the edge of the deck under my big (but about to suffer a big trimming) Chinese Fire Dancers, so they get shade but reflected light off the deck, which gets very hot in the summer. I did such a good job of arranging them by size and they look good, but I will have to keep a close eye on them.

The other bed has Guacamole, Pilgrim, Blue Jay, some Albomarginata and I can't remember what else, but space there is limited. I have to back them up against the wall to keep them out of the hot afternoon sun.

I have a few planted in the very back of the yard along what will be a dry creek bed some day, but I think I am going to move them. They may be getting a bit too much sunlight where they are.

All the ones I just stuck along the side yard here and there are now going to be IDd and properly placed. They may be fine where they are, but I really have to fight the wisteria along there. There are big acuba bushes and dogwood trees and some really big old azalea bushes on that side of the yard and it would be perfect for adding more hostas, of course, but also some astilbe maybe and some other shade loving things. They get no sun over there at all.

So it's not like I was really working on collecting them until lately, when I became a true hostaholic. I won't send plants to anyone for now until I am sure about the virus, but that doesn't stop me from adding and just staying away from the one bed.

I have a big and getting bigger every year fig tree that is my next project. I have things planted up to the end of where its shadow pattern falls and I have coleus along the edge of that. I want to put a nice group of hostas under the tree. On one side, they would get dappled sun and then from just along that edge all the way to the other side of the bed would be pretty shady. So my wish list pertains to that tree and the long bed that goes from the tree down about 20 feet, all fairly bright shade. I have Fragrant Dream planted there. There are azaleas and daturas in there now. On the opposite side of that same bed on the other side of the azaleas, I have Oriental lilies, African Queen lilies, some Siberian iris and I guess that's all until we get back toward the fig tree and it has coreopsis and dianthus planted in its sunny side. It's a long and funny pattern because there are also big tall Carolina pines along there and those big azaleas. I want to add more of the Oriental lilies in nice complimentary colors on the sunny end.

I have lots of unnamed daylilies because I just bought collections of those. Those are going to be divided and moved and a bunch sent off to my daughter's house. Because I didn't know how they would turn out, I have short ones behind tall ones and I want to get the colors sorted out better. My garden helpers are at Scout Camp this week, so they are going to be doing that when they return. I did not deadhead daylilies this year so that I can remember which ones get moved by color and height. Just watch, though, I'll mess them up somehow.

I have these orange ones blooming now that I don't remember having before and don't know where they came from. Getting old is not for sissies. I'm attaching a picture of them.

So my "wish list" would be:
Pewterware, Blue Mouse Ears, Gold Drop - small for filling in
pulchella, Sher Khan, Shining Tot, Tiny Tears - miniatures for filling in
Torchlight - I fell in love with its picture and it needs really good shade
Night Before Christmas, Spilt Milk, Vicar's Mead, Wrinkles and Crinkles, and Zounds - for under the tree and in that shady area

Then we come to the containers I'd like to place around the yard decoratively and these would be specimen-type plants:
Haylcon, Love Pat, Krossa Regal, Niagra Falls, Piedmont Gold, Bigfoot, Knockout, Phoenix, Solar Flare, True Blue

That's not all my list, but those are the ones I'd like to start with.

OK, now it's your turn to list your daylilies.

Carrie--I hope you are having a good day. I will write to you later today.

Diane