Mac, your wife may not be but I am speechless. I love your gardens and am observing and trying to learn from you. Yes, I would do some weeding to walk your paths.

LOL. I hope your wife does not read your hosta posts, or you will need that dog house. I am not sure it would be a real punishment in that setting.

WOW! I may never post a photo of my very inadequate pots again. What an absolutely gloriously stunning garden you have.

-Babka

Mac a lough is a lake in irish and is used in english as loch is in scotland and pronounced the same (lock), Its the same basic lanugage. I could ramble on but I want to go back and look at your pics again.

Denis

Oh, Mac, Mac, Mac! I am in awe, simply in awe of what one person's creativity produces. I can honestly say that I would be in seventh heaven if I had a garden like that...there is not a harsh note of colour anywhere...the light gravel pathways are so soothing...everything makes me just melt.

I'd weed for a month (not that you'd have any!) just to linger there for an hour.

Unbelievably beautiful and serene. You are a master at your craft. I congratulate you and must add that your wife is one lucky woman to call that "home". Utterly amazing property. It is also nice to recognize plants I have, or had in the past.

Awesome water feature! It looks huge. I like the look of how your plants seem to be overflowing the gardens onto your gravel paths. Very nice!

Thanks everyone, you're too kind.

If you're ever in the Detroit area irawon you can walk the paths all you want and you won't have to pull a single weed!

Lol keswick, no my wife doesn't read the post bit nothing i write would surprise but it would earn my one of her "looks". Surprisingly I get those a lot :)

Now babka, don't you dare, I love your pots! It's amazing how you've created such a gorgeous garden above ground. With how often I move my hostas around I wish they were in pots!

My oh my Jo, what can I say to such kind words? I'd invite you to tour the garden but the " I'm melting!" scene from the Wizard of Oz freaked me out as a kid :) My wife does love the garden......it keeps me out of her hair! Since it's our 31st anniversary today I'll give all the credit for the garden to her.

It's funny how pics make my lough look bigger than it is. It's only like 25'x10'. So will not huge Denis and Sandy, it's now a lough in my mind.

My wild bed, can hardly walk down it!

My seedling area, much more room to walk.

A gardening friend said Royal Standard is boring, I'm going to wash her mouth out with brunnera!

Mac, thank you so much for sharing. I absolutely love the pond area! And everything looks so lush. I'm in the Detroit area wouldn't turn down an invite to visit, ever :)

Anytime eleven. I'm almost done weeding all the silver maple seedlings so the garden is pretty much in good shape. I have a garden walk in a couple of weeks and that's always a good motivator. Feel free to shoot me an email if you want to take a look. I have some friends with gardens that put mine to shame that I can show you also. It's always a good time sharing gardens with fellow gardeners. It would be interesting doing a metro Detroit gardenweb garden tour.....or I'd be willing to have a gardenweb get together here for those that wanted to. Not sure how many from this board are close by though.

Lovely gardens. You must devote many hours to acheive this!

Thanks, Mac, for the invite. Ditto to you, if you're ever in the Ottawa area. I just bought a carex 'Banana Boat' to go with my hostas. You have one don't you? Not sure it will survive. I lost 'Ice Dance' before but bought it again too. Both fom Home Depot. Any advice on helping it overwinter in Canadian zone 5? Once again, thanks for sharing your gardens.

Thanks hostahosta. Lots of hours but it's not work if you enjoy it......that's what I keep telling myself at least.

I have quite a few Carex Bowles Golden, irawon. I don't think there's any trick to over wintering them other than not purchasing from the likes of Home Depot! Lol. Sorry, I just don't trust their plants. I realize not everyone has the luxury of having a lot of reputable nurseries in the area to shop at though.

It must've been someone else who had it with their hostas. I saw HVX in their hostas this year and haven't bought any from them. The carexs were tempting though. i won't plant them in the same spot then.

I just looked up Carex Banana Boat......very nice. I'll be on the lookout for some now.....thanks a lot irawon, just what I need....more plants! Lol

Looks like some room for Banana Boat between the Sum of All and Goodness Gracious

A new bed. It pains me to see mulch, but the hostas will fill in soon enough

Last pics

Cared, heuchera and hostas. Oh my.

View from a window

First light of the morning

Fire and Ice isn't a good grower?

Growing in pots is fun too

Spectacular, mac. Jaw-dropping gorgeous! What wonderful views.

Wow, wow, WOW, Mac! I'm stunned by the beauty of your gardens, the size of them, and the riot of color and texture. If mine looked like this I'd surely perish, as I'd never want to leave them to eat or shop. I'm sitting here shaking my head, marveling at the utter dedication that went into creating this piece of heaven on earth.

Thank you SO much for sharing your gardens with us!

Mac, absolutely sensational. If you could enter your garden for the Chelsea Flower Show in London it would win gold medals by the truck load. Some of our top profesional gardeners and designers could not acheive what you have.
Dave

That is *some* pond! Has your yard ever been in one of those fancy mags like Sunset? It easily could. It looks as good as a section in the Botanic Gardens. Seriously. It's gorgeous.

Thanks irawon. I'm not sure the views in the pics live up to reality, but I'll take the compliments all the same!

Ok hostatakeover, you must be a dude as no woman would EVER give up shopping. Lol. Thanks for the compliments and I best take cover before the ladies here start throwing their hand trowels at me!

Wow Dave, that's praise that's too high. The Chelsea Flower Show is the epitome of landscape/garden/flower design. As a landscape professional I could only hope to be included amongst such great exhibits......especially as a yank! I appreciate your compliments all the same. British gardens are a great inspiration to me, especially those of Penelope Hobhouse. It's not easy integrating her cottage style garden design with hostas, but I won't stop trying.

Thanks popmama, no magazines here, but thanks for the kind words. The garden is only in its fifth year so it still has some maturing to do. The only magazine I want it to be in is Playboy.....as long as I can watch the photographic session ;) Ouch! My wife saw that comment.

Lol on the OZ comment! A VERY HAPPY 31st ANNIVERSARY, MAC!!!

Thank you for the extra eye candy - inspiration abounds!

Mac - You kept a low profile for a while but came back with a great big bang. Have you changed things around quite a bit. It all looks so new to me. Fabulous!!!

Eye candy works for me Jo!

Thanks Donna. Yes, quite a bit has changed. I had to add 10 The Rising Sun Redbuds to the backyard in order to create more shade to plant more hostas. It's all about the bass.....or is it hostas? A garden isn't a destination but a journey, so changes abound!

Mac, years ago I use to make lists of outfits I wanted to buy. Now the shopping I prefer is going to garden centers, web browsing for hostas, and looking at plant catalogs.

Just do as I do Deb, wear a hosta leaf as an outfit. There's a idea for a thread.....what hosta leaf best fits you? Why is it I think all us guys would choose Sum & Substance? Or Sharp Dressed Man? I need to go find my Double D Cup now :)

Hi Mac, are you really serious about a garden tour? I live in the Windsor area - right across from Detroit. I would Love love love to see your garden in person. I know everyone wants to show their garden at its best (I doubt you have a bad time) and go to a lot of trouble when someone is coming to see it. I don't want to put you through that but if you have a garden tour at your place coming up I would love to see it either right before or right after your tour. If eleven can make, I would try to come at the same time so you don't have to give us separate tours. School is out and I have the summer off so let me know - I would really love to see it! Thanks.

Barb

Any time Barb. I have a garden tour coming up in a couple of weeks so the garden is in decent shape now, so any time that's convenient to you is fine.Feel free to email me to make arrangements. If you have time I'll take you to my friends 2 acre garden in swanky Bloomfield Hills with about 700 different hostas. I think there's a link to my email here, if not let me know

Hi Mac, thank you for the offer. I will try and find a fellow hosta lover in my area who would be willing to go with me. I don't travel alone in the Detroit area if I can help it. Don't know the freeways as well as I would like to and it is more fun with company anyway. I have a couple of friends with small hosta collections so I will start with them.

Unless Vanessa will be in town anytime soon???

While you're more than welcome to visit Barb Ure Drouillard, I was responding to hostas_for_barb's inquire about touring the garden. Looks like Ontario has lots of hosta loving Barb's! You don't travel alone to Detroit? I can't imagine why not. Lol. I'm a few miles north of the city and hardly ever venture into......might explain the absence of bullet holes in me :)

There may be lots of hosta loving Barbs in Ontario but you have just been communicating with one. I joined Houzz to check out interior decorating ideas as Barb Ure Drouillard and then joined Garden Web as hostas_for_barb. Now that the two have merged I still have two accounts. I am logged in under one on my tablet and a different one on my laptop and have never bothered to try to figure out how to merge the two. Sorry for the confusion, it was not intended! But glad to know we are both welcome HA HA. And no, this hosta obsession has not created an alter ego LOL.

Mac, so beautiful! I bet your neighbors are perplexed. When I was in my thirties I went to a two week dance intensive workshop. I cried for the first ten days until I realized that everyone there except me was a dance professional. So I salute your skill and eye for beauty and am happy that you can make a living doing that which you are obviously so talented.

Kathy

SPEECHLESS.

There are not enough superlatives to describe how gorgeous your gardens are! Just breathtaking!

A labour of love and a testament to your gardening skills.

There seems lots to explore and admire, and the water feature is fantastic.

What a spectacular space!

BC

Goodness, you have a stunning garden! I love your use of rock and water. And, of course, hosta. :)

Thanks for showing your great garden, you must spend a lot of time on it. I see no weed on these spectacular gravel walkways (nice rocks!). You got a great landscape, wonderful plantings. I love that creek, waterfalls and huge pond! You even landscaped the road border with all those hostas! Wow!!

I have a dry creek bed only, but you got the full scope with a running creek and waterfalls and huge pond, that's a lot of work!! That enables me to work more on my borders and creek, Thanks! Oh, I also did not see any lawn, good idea, need to dig up more lawn!

In the foreground of the waterfall picture, on the right hand side, there is a tallish plant with yellow-white flowers. Is that annual nicotiana (the very tall kind)? I haven't seen that it many years. I once planted that across the front of my property (believing it to be the smaller variety) and I ended up with a wall of it about 6 feet tall across the front yard. It smelled like heaven, but looked slightly ridiculous. I think that was when my neighbours realized that a garden lunatic had moved into the neighbourhood. I haven't repeated that faux pas, but for a while they kept springing up from seed.

Ok Barb(s), enough confusing this old man! Should you ever wish to visit just let me know. July is peak for the garden, but it looks pretty good through September. Bring whomever you like, the more the merrier.

Kathy, if by perplexed they think I'm crazy, then yes my neighbors are perplexed! Your legs must still be sore, for surely you're still in your thirties:) I remember my thirties.....I think. Thanks for the kind words.

Thanks so much hostinista, peren.all, bchosta and posierosie. I appreciate your complimentary comments.

Correct bernd, no lawn. I would love a lawn but I'd need much more property in order to give up space not devoted to plants. Dry streams are cool, you could always plant a very low ground cover like Scottish Moss to represent water flowing between the rocks.

Yes keswick, that's a tall lime green nicotiana. The perfume series of nicotiana comes in the same color but I'm liking this taller variety. And yes, they are re-seeders so I have it coming up every where.

I'm in the process of adding quite a few more annuals and perennials, I'll take pics soon.

Oh my gosh - BEAUTIFUL!!

That's all I have - it's just gorgeous. The composition, the flowers, the water, just everything!!

One of my favorite places to virtual tour is your property, Mac. Any idea how many hostas are on your grounds? 300-400 or so, you think?

Thanks Stephanie, you're too sweet.

Thanks Don. There are so many great gardens to view here, yours being one. I have about 250 varieties of hosta and about 500 total. I have some large mass plantings......75 Fire and Ice, 75 Blue Cadet, 75 Hi Ho Silver and smaller masses of others......and of course all the duplicates from buying ones I already had! I'll need to add all the seedlings I have soon also.....Jeff at LOTG gifted me some seeds that produced some amazing seedlings.

I'm going to come back and read this more carefully later... but for now, WOW! I'm scanning through these photos and all I can think is your neighbors must be incredibly envious! Either that, or they are benefiting from all your hosta when you have to split them. You must have a huge yard!

And I'm so embarrassed that I DID buy some hosta from The Home Depot just yesterday to give myself something pretty to look at while my hosta all recover from back-to-back hail storms. I'll get myself to a nursery tomorrow and get some "proper" hostas.

Stunning. Spectacular. Gorgeous. Incredible. LOVE everything about your gardens. Thanks for sharing such inspiring photos!

Thanks ck. it's funny how so many think I have a huge yard. It's just a 75'x125' lot. I guess it looks bigger in pics. I wouldn't be embarrassed buying hostas from the depot, I just don't do so myself. I'm sure plenty of people have gotten hostas there that did just fine for them. I'd still suggest you get those "proper" hostas :)

Mac, by today's standards you have a HUGE yard. My daughter's yard has a 40' frontage here in Ottawa, my son 27' in Toronto.

Wow, I feel empowered.....I have a huge yard, thanks irawon! Around here it's pretty much an average to under average sized lot. I guess I'm so used to being in my friends 2 acre garden that mine seems very small to me. While I'd like a little more space, this is a good enough sized garden for me. I'm not getting any younger and I'll appreciate not having to maintain a bigger garden down the road.

So gorgeous, mac! Mind telling what the Aslilbe-like foliage plant is in the *Hosta Ditch* photo? Thanks!

Thank you catkin. The astilbe like plant is Actea ( formerly Cimicifuga). It gets long, white, fuzzy flowers that are deliciously fragrant and the plant gets about 6' tall. There are cultivars about half that size and Hillside Black Beauty has nearly black foliage. A great shade plant in my opinion.

Spectacular garden tour. Thanks for taking us along.

Thanks, Mac! Do you know which Actea that you have--rubra...racemosa? So pretty!

I have Actea ramosa......the species and Hillside Black Beauty.. Btw....Hillside Black Beauty has a much darker foliage than either Brunette, Atropurpurea, Black Negligee or Carbonella, so I would suggest going with it. The straight species is great also with its towering height. Hope you enjoy whichever one you get.