My name says it all...67...I'm sure over time that will grow. I LOVE perennials, don't buy annuals unless something catches my eye...no, im not a perennial 'snob', i just got hooked on perennials like my mother did before me....waiting for spring to see the babies return is such a thrill.... I fell in love with hosta back in the fall of 1980 when I asked for a piece of hosta called Lancifolia...plain green, pointy leaves, but was she a beauty. I took her home in a green plastic bag and left her in the backyard, sitting in the bag, against the house until I had a chance to plant her. I had three small children, got busy, and soon forgot about the hosta. Winter came, winter left, spring followed, and I was outdoors checking on my "babies"...I gasped when I saw the garbage bag, forgotten and still propped against the house but the gasp was one of amazement! Poking out of the bag were all these pointy, green tips, obviously a hosta was growing!!!! Imagine that...a garbage bag 'hosta bed'. That was it for me...anything that could survive such neglect deserved a place of honour in my garden. To this day my daughters and I refer to this hosta as Mary Long because that is the lady who gave me my first hosta. I still love the older hosta from which all these newbies originated, in one form or another...now we have fancy names, exotic names, suggestive names aka Striptease, Obscene Gesture, etc etc etc but they are all hosta, they are beautiful, majestic plants and will never go out of style....they don't demand special care, if you don't fertilize they still reward you with flowers and they grow bigger and more beautiful each year but they DO COME BACK, YEAR AFTER YEAR. Saying I collect hosta really means I am hiding behind the excuse that my gardens are a jumbled mess, somewhat of a jungle and the hosta that live in those beds have the job of detracting from that mess...lol. Here's a pic of the Lancifolia that survived the garbage bag and fondly named Mary Long. This is the "mother" plant from which my divisions are made. She's been moved so many times I can't remember how many, yet look at her...isn't she a beauty? Anyone who ever says "less is more" ......surely that saying doesn't apply to hosta, does it? If that's the case, then I'm a hopeless case. My backyard is 42ft. wide only but it is jammed with all perennial plants. I have a bed under the tiny deck which consists of hostas, astilbes, hellebores, one heuchera, a columbine, a dwarf goat's beard, a peony, a shrubby sweet pea perennial...a bed on the other side of stairs, consisting again of hosta, peony, bergamot, anemone, brunnera, jacob's ladder, primula, easter lily, astilbe, a bed along each side of the house with more hosta, fern, tall phlox, lillies, a bed under the front window which continues down the front walkway entrance, consisting of rose of sharon, weigela, spirea, potentilla, yellow Itoh peony, hosta, then a long (not really long) free standing bed out front, forsythia row down one side of driveway, and a bed that incorporates the city-planted maple...mainly comprised of variety of low growing sedums. Just a whole lot of jumbled plants, nothing fancy or scientific, but boy they sure make me smile!!! Gardening gets me up and at it, sore back and all, and keeps me moving and happy with the world in general. My motto is that if I see it and like it, it goes home with me! I'll worry about placement later...I have no room for anything more, hosta or otherwise but, like a lot of you, I dig up more sod, lug soil bags around and plant to my heart's content!

McTavish, I brought somewhere around 50-60 hostas with me, I believe. Only one duplicate in the bunch. The minis aren't planted yet, but everything else is. I brought them all with me from the previous home, but these were ones I'd bought last fall, and had never been out of the pots yet. I DO see the owl's head in the first shovel pic, but didn't notice it until you pointed it out. It really DOES look like an owl! I love unique things in the garden too. Can't wait to see your fairies... even if your husband did look at you like you were nuts :-) upnort, about the slugs.... I'm not worried about them hiding under rocks because I have so much mulch that I'm going to have a million of them anyway! The only luck I've had with keeping them under control is to use Sluggo every few weeks. It's awfully expensive but it works. And this yard is so small that it won't be nearly as pricy as in the old place! I figure the pluses of mulch outweigh the negative of the slugs. It keeps the weeds down and keeps the moisture in, plus I like the way it looks. And I absolutely LOVE the Rocks! Try Sluggo if you can afford to. It's great.

The first one...don't know but my closest guess would be Christmas Tree. The second one...Royal Standard or an immature Honeybells. Third one.....can't be lancifolia because the petioles are too red. The leaves may not stay that lance shaped as it matures. Forth one....anybody's guess Fifth one....Undulata Erromena Sixth one....not Chartreuse Wiggles, not Dragon Tails, not Lemon Lime...got me stumped!

Posting as blfenton as my username "byronroad" has disappeared and this forum gave me a new one? I'm trying to get byronroad back. When we started the process the plan was to move the kitchen from the front/side of the house to the back of the house. Plans were drawn up and redrawn and fiddled with and tweaked and then Eureka!, we had a plan and we were about to sign off on it. And then we had a family dinner (min. of 22 people for us and usually closer to 25) and my husband and I watched how everyone socialized and how I worked and interacted with everyone and realized our great plan - wasn't going to work. Oh no! Sigh! Sleepless night. Who's going to call the contractor - oh I'll e-mail - less likelihood of him and the KD shouting at me. I do all this stuff and my husband just signs the cheques and so he's like, whatever. BUT - a week later I have a new plan and we don't have to move the outside wall as far out and it made so much sense! Leave it where it is and just make it bigger. We are now done and it is great. It works well and thanksgiving dinner with 27 people went smoothly with lots of socializing space and counter space for cooking and space for more than 2 people in the kitchen. YEA! So how many plans - I lost count but know that you will get there. There are bumps along the way and some u-turns but don't rush it.