Your gardens are lovely and look very healthy. Thank you for the tour.

Thanks for the tour. I really enjoyed it.

Bkay

Lovely gardens and what a nice treat to see so many Hosta looking so good right now.
Cher

Too much grass :)

Seriously, Very nicely done. I particularly like the front planting around the birch trees.

Steve

WOW!

-Babka

Very very nice! i really like how the lamium looks so pretty around the hostas..
carol

You were not kidding when you said, "photo heavy"....this is a real gardening tour de force!!! What lovely plants, and so well landscaped too.

I especially liked having 'Komodo Dragon' and 'Regal Splendor' photos next to one another. It gave me a chance to compare the looks of both.....and I decided I really could NOT tell the difference without your name plate.

I also saw the mature (or it looks so to me), 'Spartacus', which was mentioned as the identity of a mystery hosta in my garden. Now I do not think I have a 'Spartacus' because yours is so poised and well groomed, and my plant is all helter skelter with numerous leaf differences. Other than looking at great eye candy, it helps educate my eye for hosta too. Thanks very very much.

Wonderful, wonderful! Thank you. Nance

Beautiful gardens-thank you for sharing. This will be bookmarked for viewing in the middle of winter for sure! Your noid looks like Sagae to me, btw.

Very nice!
The mystery to me is how you keep all the hostas so healthy. The high shade seems to prevent damage from too much sun, but there is no hole from falling branches and slugs, no traces of nematodes, every leaf shown is just perfect. I bet you have a watering system going. Lancifolia is also blooming in my yard now, there are tree leaves on the ground, so the pictures must have been taken the last days, the detective in me says.
How did you do it to have plants so perfect in September like they usually are in May/June?
Thanks for the show!
Bernd

HJ, thanks for sharing. For your noid also consider Leading Lady.

Paul

I noticed a couple of nest boxes on posts. What sort of birds are they for? Wood ducks? It is a different design than the ones we put on posts out in the marshes.

Absolutely beautiful!! Thanks for sharing!!
Karen

Thank you so much for sharing your garden! I wish I had room for a baby hosta farm. I might have to cut back some useless shrubs in out woodland lot of have at it =)

And just my comment on Komodo Dragon and Regal Splendor, but they do not look nearly identical. Komodo Dragon is a darker solid blue-green with tighter ripples along the margin, whereas Regal Splendor is a blue-grey and has a cream colored margin.

Thank you all for your kind comments. I have so enjoyed seeing photos of others' gardens in past years, so it's about time I shared mine! I have been working on my gardens since purchasing my home in 1999. Slowly but surely.

Yes, Steve - too much grass! I have a running race with my nephew over who is going to get rid of their lawn mower first, and I do believe I am in the lead at this point! I have continued to enlarge gardens and install new gardens year by year.

Moccasin, one of the bird boxes is designed specifically for blue birds, but it's too wooded here to attract them, although they are nearby. The other nesting boxes have been picked up at craft shows (I have several throughout my property) and are occupied by several different varieties, including chickadees, wrens and sparrows.

Bernd, the watering system is ME! Some day I want to install a sprinkler system but not until the backyard has been laid out. In the meantime, I'm dragging hoses around during those timeframes when we don't have enough rain. It's been such a good summer, though, with plenty of well-timed rain that I have not had to water until the past three weeks. For some reason I have never really battled slugs here, although the cutworms sometimes make an appearance. I certainly do have my share of tree debris (excellent starter wood for my firepit) but the hostas haven't really been dramatically affected. Unfortunately, I do have several plants with nematodes - inevitable, particularly given all the carrier shade plants in my gardens. I have started to battle them with Bayer this year.

Jenna & Paul, thanks for the suggestions on the NOID. Might well be Sagae. I do have Leading Lady nearby, and her shape and size is nearly identical, but her leaves are much darker with a whiter edge.

It's just really been a great year for my gardens, and I am continuing to enjoy them into the fall. Hopefully, the hard frost will hold off a few more weeks!

This was a very nice tour of your gardens! But,please don't tell me you paid money for all those Joe pie weeds up near your house! I actually know a family here,who paid someone to install some of them in their yard. Why? They are FREE,as they grow all over the place down here! It looks like you have quite a bit more property than I have,so you can expand all over the place. In my little garden,on the side of a hill,most of the property is unusable,as it is too steep. Nice gardens,and thanks for sharing! Phil

Well, Phil, I bought ONE Joe Pye Weed several years ago, along with one monarda, one bleeding heart and three black-eyed susans - and have been giving aways plants ever since!
And yes, I do have plans to expand into my back hillside area while leaving the inherent woodsy feel intact. Thanks for your kinds words.

Sorry,hosta junkie,I realized I spelled Joe Pye weed,almost as soon as I posted it. Seriously,though,they do grow wild here and come up everywhere on my property and all over these mountains. I like them,even if they are a weed. There are a lot more obnoxious weeds out there! Phil

Beautiful gardens! But I will have to review several times, 'cause there is so much to see. Plus I have added to my wish list. Thank you for the tour!!

stupendous ...

is that really sagae???

i realize its young.. but it looks more like a SS clone ...

ken

People can copy such postings into their Windows My Documents gardening folder, and then during blizzards or simple -20F outside get a warm coffee or a beer and enjoy all those pictures again. That is without searching the Garden Web again. Have a good one!
Bernd

Yes, Ken, I'm fairly confident that is Sagae - it was obtained as a division from a local hosta vendor who specializes in only hostas. It's in a lot of shade, which could account for the smaller leaf margin.

Ironically, last night we had quite a windstorm - even lost power for several hours. And when I woke up this morning, I found a large tree branch on my new boulder garden. Not too much damage, and at least it's the end of the season. Definitely not complaining!

Wow! I just found this. What a beautiful setting. All you need is a few more hosta...

wow - mine sure didn't look that good in September... not even August! Thanks for the tour!