12 step program or not, I sure your garden is beautiful. At least your not inflicting bodily harm to plants. My Hosta needs a 12 step program to wean me away!

Melissa,

Girl, you've come to the WRONG place!
We're nothing but a bunch of ENABLERS! LOL!

Char

I broke every rule before I finished reading the thread - rofl!
No 12 Step Program here, no, no, no.
Pam

Sorry Melissa...I can't say the prayer....put me in rehab!
OOOOPS...done it again...new purchase.
Fell off the wagon again.

It's so nice to be addicted.

I agree with Char. You are not going to get any support from this group. We are all still actively struggling with our own addiction. It is however the first step....to admit you have a problem. Your serenity prayer is cute. My favorite nursery is open today till 3p on the 4th of July. I also have a coupon for %50 off the cost of any one hosta. I suppose I could drive my motorcycle there this afternoon with a strapless bathing suit on to help me get rid of some strap marks. See how my twisted little mind works? Later, Love, Lisa

Melissa,

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but no garden is ever finished, and making new garden areas means less lawn grass. It doesn't matter your reason for making new beds, it only matters that less lawn grass equals a good thing. That brings us to buying plants you don't have room for. If you didn't buy new plants that would mean always being burdened with too much lawn.

There is still no proof, and actually there have been studies to the contrary, that 12 step programs works for everyone. Experts are quickly coming to the conclusion that a 12 step program leads to deprivation, which eventually leads to over-indulging in the addiction secretly. Before you know it, you'll start hiding little hostas under bigger ones. Then when someone notices a new hosta, or that something looks different, you will pretend to be surprised, and call them seedlings or sports.

What is the big deal with 4 new plants anyway, especially at 25% off. Sheesh, you are practically obligated to buy them. Look how happy Lisa is. She admits she has a problem, but is going to buy more plants today.

Besides, what is enough....really? When enough happens, you will know. Until then, don't fill your head with a false sense of enough.

Sigh--I should have said that prayer (and meant it) before losing the 38 this Spring! You'd think
that it would have slowed me down this year--and it did, some, but I have picked up a few this year, anyway:
a couple of 'Blue Angels', 'Spilt Milk', 'August Moon', 'Emerald Ruff Cut', 'Summer Breeze', 'Titanic' and
'Sum of All'--most with a gift certificate for my birthday!

And, I did receive some "gifts" from someone who sympathized with my plight, so that did help, a lot, too!
Thank you, thank you!

There's no hope for us 'cause the truth is...

we don't want to be helped!

Am I right there, folks???? LOL

I admit that I am powerless over the siren call of the hosta, (ferns too.)

I admit that I need help.

But most of all, I need more SPACE!!!!!

Bwahahahaha!!!

Lainey

I actually have a 12 step program that I came up with a few years ago, and it's proven to be very effective for me. Try this:

Step One: Buy more hostas
Step Two: Buy more hostas
Step Three: Buy more hostas
Step Four: Buy more hostas
Step Five: Buy more hostas
Step Six: Buy more hostas
Step Seven: Buy more hostas
Step Eight: Buy more hostas
Step Nine: Buy more hostas
Step Ten: Buy more hostas
Step Eleven: Buy more hostas
Step Twelve: Return to Step One

I've been through the entire program several times, and so far it's been very successful and much easier than I anticipated. I do find it best not to go through the entire 12 steps every year.

Now if you want a slightly more serious 12 step program, try this:

Step One: Buy your first hosta at a big box store, become instantly addicted.

Step Two: Dig up a small area in the shady part of the property where nothing else will grow anyway, and put in an entire bed of hostas--5 or 6 different ones, all from the box store. Be sure you do NOT label anything, make a map, or write down the names of the varieties you bought, even if the box store had them tagged.

Step Three: Discover that the local nursery has MUCH nicer hostas than the box store, and that the entire genus does not consist of only 6 varieties--there are at least 20 different hostas out there! And you have to have ALL of them, even though the local nursery is a whole lot more expensive than the box store!

Step Four: Enlarge your new hosta bed, because there is no way it's going to hold the 12 new varieties you bought at the local nursery. Besides, you are going back to the nursery for the other 8 varieties as soon as you get your next paycheck, or the birthday money your parents said they are sending. Plant the new varieties about a foot apart--a hosta can't possibly get bigger than that, can it?

Step Five: Mention to everyone you know that you are now a hosta gardener. Eventually you will come across someone who will tell you that they have had hostas for years, and would be happy to share some with you. Drive to their house and be shocked at how large a hosta can get. Gleefully accept all the plants they give you, forget the names immediately, drive home and somehow stuff them in the new bed. Plan to enlarge the bed the next day.

Step Six: The hostas from the nursery all had labels in the pots, and you have realized that you don't know anything about any of the plants you bought, and don't know the names of the ones you got from the neighbor. Go online to do some research, and discover the Hosta Library. Your head will now explode.

Step Seven: You MUST HAVE every hosta listed in the Hosta Library!!! Immediately!!! You discover a hosta specialist nursery that does mail order, and place a $300 initial order. While you wait for it to arrive, you amuse yourself by digging out the rest of the grass that was in the shade areas to convert it all to hosta beds. The order arrives, and you discover that you have ordered 5 varieties that have a green center and a white edge, 5 varieties that have a green edge and a white center, 5 varieties that are green with a gold edge, and 5 varieties that are green with a gold center. You love them all.

Step Eight: You plant the 20 new hostas, but something is wrong. It occurs to you that maybe a few solid colored hostas would not be amiss. You get back on the web, find a new nursery, and are quite taken with Blue Angel, Sum & Substance, Blue Mammoth, Blue Umbrellas, Golden Sculpture, Montana Macrophylla, Elatior, Niagara Falls, and Nigrescens. While you wait for them to arrive, you amuse yourself by researching the mature size of all your new plants, and realize that you are in trouble. A sizable hunk of partly shady lawn becomes a hosta bed.

Step Nine: You have become aware that some sort of order must be brought to this addiction. Not only is your bank account dwindling alarmingly, and your spouse becoming a trifle surly, but the lawn is quietly disappearing as well. You have hostas everywhere, with no order, too crowded, and not well marked. Stop and take a deep breath, and don't buy another hosta until you have gotten ALL of your hostas marked, moved to better locations, and harmoniously arranged in the beds, taking into consideration mature size, color, plant habit, and leaf shape. (don't worry, nobody ever actually does step nine)

Step Ten: Okay, now that you have skipped Step Nine, you decide maybe it's time to become much more selective about which hostas you buy. You now discover the hosta forum, a weird place where absolutely everyone is completely obsessed with hostas, and perfectly willing to talk about them all day and most of the night. You lurk for a while, then start to post asking advice on whether or not you should buy variety A, or variety B. The entire forum leaps in to tell you to buy both, and that you must get variety C, D, E, F, and G as well.

Step Eleven: You realize that restraint is what you need, because there isn't a square foot of empty space left in which to plant another hosta, and you are still seeing pictures of must-have plants posted on the forum on a daily basis. Suddenly the solution occurs to you--minis! You set out to stuff a mini in every spot that has even so much as 6 square inches of available space. You also dig out and give away all the original common 'boring' hostas you bought from the box store, and start a wish list of the seriously expensive, new hostas that you will someday buy.

Step Twelve: Give up on your current house, and move to the country. Be sure to buy at least 3 acres--anything smaller fills up too quickly. You are now a regular contributor to the forum (read enabler), sell hostas on the side to support your habit, are beginning to dabble in hybridizing, you go sport fishing at every nursery within 100 miles where the entire staff knows you by your first name, attend the national convention every year, and when you aren't digging in the dirt, you are busy converting other poor innocent souls into hosta addicts. The entire county refers to you as "that strange person with all those funny looking plants under the trees", you know off the top of your head that Montana Praeflorens is now called Montana Macrophylla, you can tell El Nino from First Frost at 20 paces and know who hybridized both, and you've never been happier in your life. Or at least you will be, just the minute you get your hands on a nice start of Ribbon Dancer! Congratulations--you've finished the twelve step program. I highly recommend it to everyone.

Inquiring minds would like to know what your four new hostas are! ;)
Kristy

dhaven...

LOVE IT....

and right on too...

LOL...

jill

OMG...HOW FUNNY DHAVEN!
Haven't completed the 12 step yet.
Got to get that 3 Acre plot outside of suburbia.
But we'll get there!

Dhaven....what's you AKA...didn't see it on the First Name Intoduction post?

That 12 step program is so funny and so true! I nominate it for the FAQ fun and tidbits. I love it.
Mary

oh god... totally LMAO at this!

Step One: Buy more hostas
Step Two: Buy more hostas
Step Three: Buy more hostas
Step Four: Buy more hostas
Step Five: Buy more hostas
Step Six: Buy more hostas
Step Seven: Buy more hostas
Step Eight: Buy more hostas
Step Nine: Buy more hostas
Step Ten: Buy more hostas
Step Eleven: Buy more hostas
Step Twelve: Return to Step One

Glad you were amused by the 12 step program. If someone wants to post it on the FAQ page that's fine--just keep in mind that I am not responsible for anyone else's hosta addiction.

hostared: if you are serious about moving to the country, I suggest you start looking now. It took me 5 years of searching before I found a nearly ideal spot. The key for me was mature oak trees, no immediate neighbors, and a very quiet road. It was worth the wait--I plan to die here and have my ashes scattered over my hosta beds!