My Dinky Donna was new this year. I think it will be a nice little two toned plant.

Thanks for your input, Donna. It appealed to me because it was different from anything else I have. I have hostas with bold differences in color on their leaves, such as green/white, blue/white, green/yellow, etc. This is way more subtle. There is an appeal in that. How has it been growing for you? Looks beautiful in this picture. Do you think it will get too big for the space I will have for it? The advantage to this space is that it's the edge of the garden, so leaves could stick out over the low border wall and the center of the crown could therefore be closer to that wall. Sort of a cheat!

My Dinky Donna is about 4 years old. It's stayed small enough to fit in your 15 inch space and is very, very pretty. I don't have Picasso, but can give Dinky Donna a hearty recommendation.

Ha! You located an extra 15" spot to place a new plant. What an opportunity!

The only caution I will have to keep in mind is that the corner of the garden under discussion is a couple of feet from the garbage cans. I hope the maintenance men and the "landscape workers" do not trample the prospective new plant when they empty the cans or mow between the back of my garden and the building. I have some extra bricks left over from the border edging wall. I could make a double layer of them at the corner, where the end of the garden meets the sidewalk. The extra height would likely protect the new plant from their clod-like feet.

Dinky Donna is very small in my yard. I am not that impressed with it yet so I just dug it up and put it in another place.

Size is described as 6 x 12 inches. So it should fit in nicely.

If you don't already have it, I'd consider High Society for that spot. I've had mine for about 7 years and it is still a nice small size. The brighter centers would help it pop, "behind the Obligatory Bushes".

High Society

tj

Hey, Tsuja. I HAD a High Society last year. Never came up this year. Love it, but done with it. "If you ain't gonna grow, I don't want ya no mo".

Esther, you made me smile!

Aren't we crazy, scratching together every inch for a new hosta? I do not have Dinky Donna or Picasso :-( But how about a nice small Stiletto? A good grower in my garden, have divided this plant last year and it looks as nothing had happened this year...

I do like my High Society, hope it will come back next year...

Dinky Donna is a nice little hosta, I will try to find a small space for it in my garden,too...

If you're allowed to do it, put a tomato cage or a peony ring over whatever you plant. It might not look great, but will protect the plant. If you want to be subtle, maybe a tripod of bamboo stakes.

It's a MadMadMadMad world, Mad, at least over here in my housing development. If I would put a cage around something, the co-op manager would come running across the street from his office, his flab swinging back and forth, and scream at me that "the insurance people think that this is pointy and dangerous!" He has declared "pointy and dangerous" the following: the plastic Adirondack garden fencing put around my original garden under the plum tree that died; a wrought iron trellis my clematis was growing on (so I made a really outrageous one of swim noodles and put the clematis on that, until he made noise about that, too); pinwheels stuck into your garden (we had a memo about pinwheels in gardens, but no worries, I hate pinwheels in gardens); and plant pots NOT sunk into the ground (not pointy, but dangerous!). How I have managed to avoid his wrath about the half-dozen large ceramic pots scattered within the confines of my garden, I don't know. They are not sunk into the ground. He must be saving that for a slow day. He also had the "landscape workers" rip out a neighbor's Rose of Sharon without any warning or opportunity to move it, because "it was too close to the building" and had a perfectly beautiful pine tree cut down because---wait for it---it was "too close to the building". The only thing around here that's truly "pointy and dangerous" is this guy's HEAD.

Haha, I took some spare bricks and made a 2-brick-high garden border wall at the corner of the extended area. Let the "landscape workers" and maintenance men watch their step. Since the maintenance guys repaired our shaky porch banister by encasing the lower end in a 12" square block of cement on the sidewalk that anyone could easily trip over, I think they have nothing to say about this.

Esther, that story is priceless. Pointy and dangerous, indeed! Ha. And a pool noodle trellis must have been a real sight to see!

I have similar issues in my development. The things they fuss about seem so silly sometimes.

Sounds like a review of the property manager's contract of employment is in order. They usually don't have broad enough authority to take down trees without a review of the situation and if they do perhaps that's just a bit of an overreach? I'd worry about what else he can do? We have vacationed at friends' condos which have lists of regulations and resident snoops who are always checking out visitors and enforcing the "rules". One had a rule book that was 30 pages long. While I understand that people live there for the ease of maintenance, etc, and don't want everyone to just put up whatever they want but there has to be some tolerance for putting in a few plants, unless people just want everything to be uniform, then why not put in plastic plants and be done with it?

Esther, you sure have a way with words - you had me bursting out laughing!! Thanks for the entertainment! Lol

I just adore Dinky Donna and I'm getting one too...I've been threatening to do so for a couple of years now. Next spring, for sure!

I think you need a Dinky Donna too - it would look great with your mini collection! ;-). Your idea of it being somewhat elevated (double-decker end) is great not just to protect it from the "clods" but to bring it closer to the eye to admire.

Josephine, it must be tearing up what passes for the co-op manager's heart, because folks in the 2 buildings down from mine put in their own versions of my garden. Theirs are far smaller, but you can see the influence of my garden there. Soon, the whole side of our street will sport gardens, haha! So far, he hasn't bothered me about my new stone/brick border fence. There is nothing pointy there, so maybe that's why.

Dinky Donna can go in the nice celadon green glazed ceramic planter I got at an outlet store. That planter is like 9" diameter, which should give Dinky Donna plenty of room to grow. I see that my Country Mouse is sort of lost being planted directly in the ground, so I will transfer it in the spring to one of the 10" unglazed terra-cotta planters I picked up at Lowes on clearance ($6!). I will add some alyssum or such to keep it company. The Silver Threads and Golden Needles babies will probably go into the 17 x 6 x 6" terra-cotta planter (window box shape) I just got, under the benevolent shade of my Easy Does It rose in the raised bed part of the garden. I wonder if that window box shape planter will give enough room for both STGN babies.