Hi Jan, and welcome! I was new to this forum in 2011. This is a great place to learn about hostas and the people are wonderful! Sometimes I feel like the whole forum is out there with me when I'm wandering through my gardens. Here's my story: In 2006, I bought 6 hostas in the fall for 75 cents each, planted them at the back of the fence and forgot about them. In 2008, I divided an Undulata Albomarginata into 10 hostas to form a border around my pachysandra bed. In the spring of 2010, I noticed that the 75 cent hostas had grown into lovely plants despite the fact that they had been ignored for the past four years. I also noticed that all the other perennials I had planted over the past four years had died! So, I made a trip to the local nursery to get some more hostas to fill in the spots where my perennials had died. It was on that day that I made the startling discovery that those names on the tags like Elegans and Frances Williams meant something. I ended the season with about 70 new varieties. During the fall of 2010, I found this forum and for the next 6 months, I read each and every post. I started making lists and finding nurseries to buy the hostas on my list. On March 28, 2011, my husband drove 60 miles (one way) to pick up some of the hostas on my list. He came back with 11. When the first nursery in our area opened on April 1, 2011, I bought 9 more. On April 2, I drove the 60 miles with my husband and got another 23. Well, before I knew it, I ended up with 96 hostas in our house waiting for the last frost! By the end of May, I had aquired about 180 hostas and swore that I was done buying for the season. I managed to buy 134 more, for a total of 314 new ones in 2011. My kids call me the crazy hosta lady. My son still talks about driving with 40 hostas in the back of the car, accompanied by a chirping cricket for 300 miles! My daughter, a Creative Writing major in college, wrote her final paper about my hosta obsession. She got an "A", her professor was intrigued that people actually collect hostas and will go to great lengths to find a certain cultivar. I don't know how large our gardens are, but the grass in the back is slowly disappearing. We have plans to start planting them in the park in back of us when we run out of room. I love to grow my hostas in full sun, I won an irrigation system in a contest that keeps them cool with misting water during the hottest part of the day. Gesila

4” cans are plenty for LEDs and get replacement LED bulbs for your halogens too.The rest sounds good to me just remember you need other lighting in the space , ceiling light is just one level.

This is what I've been saying on this forum for 15 years. Watering: Deep and infrequent is the mantra for watering. This is for all turf grass all over the place. Deep means 1 inch all at one time. Put some cat food or tuna cans around the yard, and time how long it takes your sprinkler(s) to fill all the cans. Memorize that time. That will be the time you water from now on. My hose, oscillator sprinkler (full sweep) and water pressure takes 8 full hours to fill the cans. Your time will likely be less. I like gentle watering. As for watering frequency, that depends on the daytime air temperature. With temps in the 90s, deep water once per week. With temps in the 80s, deep water once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 70s, deep water once every 3 weeks. With temps below 70, deep water once a month. Note that you have to keep up with quickly changing temps in the spring and fall. This deep and infrequent schedule works in Phoenix and for the most part, in Vermont, so it should work for you. The reason for deep and infrequent is to grow deeper, more drought resistant roots and to allow the soil to dry completely at the surface for several days before watering again. If it rains, reset your calendar to account for the rainfall. So that's what I've been saying. The idea of this schedule is to keep the grass green and not allow it to go dormant in the summer. Here is a picture of some Kentucky bluegrass lawns in eastern Pennsylvania photographed in July many years ago. All four lots have the same grass. The owner of the green lawn is one of the gurus on another lawn care forum. He has asked around and watched what his neighbors do as far as fertilizing, mowing, and watering. He says the main difference is that the other lawn owners water every day in the morning while he waters only once per week. I can tell you the same picture could be bermuda grass watered daily versus once per week. Deep and infrequent is the mantra for a reason.

I'm finding that many of the suppliers/subs just don't seem to care very much. A big chain is doing my plumbing fixtures, but for kitchen appliances I finally abandoned them for a smaller dealer as it took weeks for my rep to ever get back to me. After almost six months of mistakes on my quotes, I was stressed out, the contractor was nudging me to get things finalized, and I was losing sleep. All fine now! I also went in and picked out some bathroom tile in mid April, and I just got my proposal last Friday 6/12! 8 weeks to just get me prices on the tiles and quantities. I kept telling the builder that I needed to know because I wasn't sure that what I picked out was on budget. (It Isn't) . (That's another thing..the showrooms act like the prices are a state secret. My builder works with this tile company all of the time, they know what his usual discount is to give me a rough idea of costs.) I'm going to have to go somewhere else and mostly start again. It's so discouraging. Our house was supposed to be done 15 months after breaking ground, in early October of this year. Last month even before the brick and column setbacks occurred, they were saying that the first of next year would be the earliest. I just keep reminding myself that this too shall pass, just as I did when my children hit very difficult stages. But I'm very jealous whenever I see an episode of 100 Day Dream Home on HGTV!