I'll send you an email with a list of extras I have. I'm interested in trade. Erin

When I rented a house in New Orleans a few years back, there was a space sparsely lanscaped which the landlord gave me permission to tend - "so long as you don't make the yard man's job any more difficult" - meaning he still had to be able to rake in a straight line over the forty square feet. The area was compacted sand. I began by working in compost to the soil - stealing neighbors' discarded bags of yard waste. Then I had to contend with my next issue: the three surrounding neighbors all had live oaks which butted up against the communal fences, painting my whole landscaping canvas in medium to heavy shade. I plotted out my plan and spaced things out. One major obstacle was this big green plant in one corner of the yard which was screwing up my plans. I focused my initial efforts on removing it. Well, it was very well established. As I began investigating the four-square-foot plant - a green leafy monster - I found ten years' worth of Mardi Gras beads hiding among the leaves, a few dog toys from tenants' past, and a whole load of charcoal right in the center. The plant seemed to have no unifying stalk - just a bunch of long green leaves spewing out everywhere etched with deep veins. Removing it was going to be very, very difficult. I revised my plan. Instead of removing the plant, I would chop it back to allow for the spacing I wanted for the three shrubs I was putting in along the fence in one of the few spots of the yard which enjoyed any sun at all. I probably chopped a foot of the plant off two sides. I threw the leaves I'd chopped off along the side of the fence toward two dark back corners - an attempt to push water overflow back into my neighbors' yards where it belonged. A few months passed. I found gardenweb.com looking for more info on plants which grow well in the shade. I planted. Things grew. Life was good. I eventually gravitated to the carnivorous plant forum and had some modest succes growing pitcher plants in long-strand sphagnum moss in wooden pots. Well, I look over at my discard piles one day and notice that the discarded leaves I'd thrown in the corner had gone from horizontal to vertical. Somehow, that pieces of that big green plant which I'd removed had survived the torture of the shovel and had rooted in the darkest corner of the yard and were thriving! I needed to know more about that plant. I now had much respect for it. No longer was it an obstacle and adversary, but a warrior and a friend. I found through neighboring gardeners that the plant was a hosta. From that day forward, whenever I met a hosta, I'd say to whoever was with me, "THAT! is a hosta." Much respect. Well, my brief affair with the hosta may have ended there, but it did not. I married and moved to Virginia. After two hosta-less years in Virginia Beach, I moved to the DC area. Three weeks ago, my small family left our yardless condo for a new home - complete with a yard. A very big, well-landscaped yard. My wife is a Master Gardener in Virginia and a Master Herbalist, but I am the constant gardener in the family. Whoever owned this house before us loved hostas. It has about thirty different hosta plants blended into the landscape - probably six different types I think I've found so far. I'd like to post pictures later when I'm more comfortable with the forum and solicit some help in identifying my hostas. My eye is not familiar enough yet with the nuances of the hosta to tie the name of the hosta to its visual profile. I'm looking forward to cultivating my hosta. I don't know if I'm a anti-divider yet, but I have no plans to divide this year. I watched the video someone posted on how to divide - thanks for that. I plan to collect seeds this fall to see if I can germinate some new little lives. Post-Katrina, I sometimes wonder about how my old yard in New Orleans is doing. One thing is certain - that big old green hosta is definitely still anchoring one corner of that yard!

not a seed... seedlings are solid colored or streaked... so it wouldn't have this nice clear margin. Starting with the big one... my impression was also Honeybells. Honeybells has plantaginea heritage, so it has three of that species' traits - shiny, glossy leaves, sun tolerance, and fragrant flowers. The flowers aren't the big showy white plantaginea flowers, more lavender. Those traits should help you decide if that's what you have. The little one doesn't appear to have much in common with the big one. Looks like a young Fortunei Albomarginata. I have to suspect it is a stowaway, either a fragment that got in with the Honeybells at the nursery or snuck in with your potting soil at home. If you don't have one like it in your garden, then the first possibility seems the most likely...

Thanks, Ken. The native soil in the "newly discovered area" is heavy clay, but I tilled bag after bag of peat moss into it almost a decade ago when I moved in. Moreover, I just dumped a bag of Miracle Grow or some such brand of general purpose garden soil, which is like black velvet, into the "newly discovered area" to bring the level of soil up to the rest of the garden. The drainage is excellent, as it rained all day Saturday with no puddling at all. I intend to put an inch of my "shredded forest product" red much (the Scott's Earthgro mulch) over the whole new area to further protect the babies. I also visited my local area nursery today. While there, I asked their on-staff sage what to do with the baby hostas. He tossed me three 4" plastic pots, on the house, and told me to repot the babies into these slightly larger pots and THEN put the pots into the ground. Charlie (the sage) and I often get into detailed conversations about various houseplants. Today was no exception, as I told him of my big box store super-find of a Sansevieria ehrenbergii samurai --- the store had no idea about rare it was to come across---along with a beautiful Crassula arborescens undulatifolia, both in a planter with some sort of echeveria which was on its way out. I pointed to the ailing ordinary echeveria and got all 3 plants for half price, tee hee.