My friend hates gardening but loves her Dad's hostas
My best friend of 40 years hates gardening! Sometimes we are so different from each other!
We don't visit our homes too often as we are a fair distance from each other. She has always said that she planted some hosta (well, her husband did the planting) from her dad many years go. He's passed now and they hold a special place in her heart.
So when I last visited her, I decided to take a quick picture of these hosta. Wondering if you could help identify them. I know it's a bad time of year to really get a good look at them so I plan to have her take photos in the spring.
She has lots of sun---mostly likely they grow in full sun. She doesn't amend the soil nor fertilize for the most part.
The way she had described this hosta to me was that it had big leaves. I was imagining Sum and Substance. But for a hosta that had been there for many years, I thought it was way too small to be S&S. You can see the sedum beside it for scale.
I see this one as undulata.
Any guesses are appreciated!
Comments (14)
nicholsworth Z6 Indianapolis
5 years agonewhostalady Z6 ON, Canada thanked nicholsworth Z6 IndianapolisRelated Discussions
Without her, my garden and her family...sad..
Comments (23)Thank you, each and everyone for the thoughts. I found your understanding very sweet and comforting. I am sure we will enjoy our new location once we get things "wrapped up." I will miss all the roses I have grown, but drought, blight and viruses have already accounted for about a 25% loss of what we grew a few years ago and now we have shovel-pruned others due to disease intolerance, lackluster performance, etc. So we grow less than half of what we did just 5 years ago; we are down to fewer than 200 roses. My Noisettes, (including the beautiful Crepuscule) all took to their death bed over the last few months, on the coattails of losing many other roses to RRD in recent years. I was told the reason for the noisette/ornamental cherry tree losses was a soil-borne "blight..." I got the official report but I was inundated in pressing matters such as a new roof from a storm, floors from a flood, putting the house back together after having to move everything out, wash it, clean it, dry it and do it all over again, to the pressing health issues of a family member, so I just filed it away, knowing that this too would pass. The verbal report (and what I read in the local paper were similar), that many other people in my area had the same thing. It sounded to me like going to the doctor with a sore throat and low-grade fever, getting an antibiotic,a steroid and a pat on the back with the infamous medical statement, "it's a virus, it's going around,I have seen ...cases....blah, blah, blah..." You just take the medicine and move on. We will grow a few roses, but the "powers that be" sort of determine what one can and cannot grow. Fortunately, since I have worked with the master gardeners in the historical gardens, perhaps they will be more lenient. I want to grow Crepuscule again, so I want to try it at my new home. Duchesse, Caroline lives about 80 miles east. I know that you too have probably noted this as I have, that people think because we live in Alabama, we all live close together. In fact, Alabama has a pretty diverse terrain in terms of physical features (and diverse zone conditions as well as a diverse citizenry), from the world's whitest sand/bluest beaches on the Gulf Coast, to the state capital (and former Confederacy/Goat Hill in Montgomery), to the marble quarries of Sylacauga, (home to the world's finest and whitest marble), to Birmingham formerly known as Pittsburg of the South (now one of the fastest growing cities in the country with cutting-edge medical teaching university), to Mt Cheaha, the tail end of the southern segment of the Blue Ridge, also part of the Cumberland Plateau and even my little area (the oldest industrial/manufacturing city in Alabama). Thanks for allowing me to vent!!!!! http://www.prattville.com/Default.asp?ID=5...See MoreGarden tragedy-toxic Sevin has wiped out my Dad's honeybees
Comments (82)Donnann, your Bee Balm garden sounds like heaven! and I am so sorry that naughty Woodchuck literally cleaned up his plate with your garden...I am sending much warm wishes for your Bee balm garden's speedy recovery...Yes, definitely get wire fencing for it. I would have loved to have seen your Bee Balm Garden.I am keeping my fingers crossed that Mr. Woodchuck will chomp on only the wild weeds instead, like crabgrass or nutsedge or those invasive tree shrubs! I recently saw Kristenflower's absolutely gorgeous rose/lavender heaven too at the gallery and was so impressed! Yours and hers are ideal bee gardens just like Celestialrose. I need to grow much more bee balm because I found out that my dwarf bee balm is not as "invasive" as I had hoped, LOL, no thanks to my crappy soil. I actually planted my bee balm away from my roses in a bare 3 by 3 area. My bee-attracting plants are too young, too few to really attract many bees so next time I have to amp the collection and not! deadhead my beebalm, hoping the seeds will scatter My dad on the other hand has 3 crabapple trees, a persimmon tree, a dwarf apple tree, his yard is completely overrun with wild honeysuckle bushes, lilacs, a forest of hollyhocks and sweet peas(which the bumblebees used to love before they died, one flowering redbud tree, winterberry, azaleas, gardenias, jasmine, 3 crazy rosebushes that are like 8' tall because he never prunes them, 1 rootstock Dr. Huey, all these bee and bird attracting plants which I am so jealous about...But! he does not have bee balm... I think he can certainly add this to his collection...Donna, LOL! I think you will be "enabling" him; the neighbors already think he's got enough of a jungle...Also genes run in the family, hahahaha! I tried to keep as tidy of a garden as I could, but my garden still looks like a jungle because I planted like 50! overly tall gladiolus and now I want to grab some of my Dads overly tall hollyhocks as well! Anyway, I cant wait to see your bee balm garden recover and flourish once again. Hugs! Greenhaven alas I have just a handful of those native beesbut am grateful that at least I have those few. Your post reminded me, do you remember that "I am so excited thread" I wrote? The wonderful cute Mr. Bumblebee that used to visit my garden in May did not survive it seemsIn Mid-June it disappeared after my next door neighbor hired a professional pesticide company to spray the foundations of their home. Perhaps it too was Sevin? It was not until an entire month and a half passed that my Dads bees disappeared... (he and I live in completely separate neighborhoods and bees only have that 3 mi. radius anyways) So as you can see I feel why I feel so guilty. Perhaps if I had mentioned this to my Dad, who knows something could have been prevented? Again, you may be right in that the wild bees are hardier in comparison. They have shorter life spans and dont have communal hives, and that is why they have survived You see if you do the research and look up native bees youll discover thisThey dont have the hives and therefore, they dont have the communal death that the honeybees experience when they are exposed to Sevin. Because wild bees have so many tiny individual nests, each is independent of each other ... Not so with honeybees. Once their hive is contaminated, their entire hive is destroyed, thousands are gone. But to be honest I will always love the honeybee and bumblebees more... There's just something so special about their fuzziness that I love!...See MoreOT: My dad's amazing veggie garden
Comments (19)I wanted to say 'THANK YOU' to all of you who took the time to look and comment. I know to treasure every moment that I am blessed to have my Dad. That is why I couldn't resist posting this and celebrating the great man he is and aways has been. Jean...Dad has a couple of rain barrels that are fairly close to the garden where he gets water from since the water is shut off. Unfortunately it hasn't rained much this summer so it isn't often he can water...but he does do it by hand. He walks with a slight limp from the hip fracture but maintains that garden all by himself, which is how he likes it. When Dad was in the nursing home recuperating he talked about having a garden again this year and we all were afraid he wouldn't be able to. He ordered seeds anyway! My husband did go over in the spring and rototilled the garden so that Dad could plant his seeds and did take him to the plant nursery for tomato plants. Other than tomatoes everything else is from seed. Every year his garden looks like this. I was just even more amazed this year considering he is still recuperating. Thanks, RITA....I knew you especially would enjoy this post. Celeste...See MoreHow do I tell my best friend her husband is cheating on her?
Comments (14)I'd tell her she better go and snoop herself. Why would she send you instead of doing it herself anyway? And, why would he leave a prescription for Viagra laying around/wouldn't it be at the drug store or in his wallet? What could you tell from the "phone records" without doing a little more research? Don't they have a trash service at his office...or does it just not get taken out if he is out of town? Why wasn't your friend waiting with baited breath to see what you found if she knew you were going to be snooping? Guess I have more questions than answers to give you. Anyway, offer to watch her kids, and tell her she better go take a look herself....See More
gardencool
5 years agonicholsworth Z6 Indianapolis
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agomy fading Plantaginea blooms..the fragrance is wonderful..
newhostalady Z6 ON, Canada thanked nicholsworth Z6 Indianapolisnewhostalady Z6 ON, Canada
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agonicholsworth Z6 Indianapolis
5 years agonewhostalady Z6 ON, Canada thanked nicholsworth Z6 Indianapolis
peren.all Zone 5a Ontario Canada
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agonewhostalady Z6 ON, Canada thanked peren.all Zone 5a Ontario Canadanicholsworth Z6 Indianapolis
5 years agogardencool..I do think the leaves on the first one resemble plantaginea..but the blooms aren't the same so back to the drawing board..
peren..I see the resemblance to S&S..mine has much bigger leaves..
newhostalady Z6 ON, Canada thanked nicholsworth Z6 Indianapolisnewhostalady Z6 ON, Canada
5 years agoFor me, I don't see #1 as plantaginea at all. Besides the color of the flower which rules plantaginea out, the hosta is way too yellow. I know the sun can change the coloring of the hosta, but it just seems too drastic a change.
Gardencool, I am thinking old time hostas too. I thought for sure there would be undulatas. My friend used to tell me that #1 had huge leaves. I thought it to be S&S without even seeing it. But then when we did visit, I thought it looked so small and got confused about its identity. Isn't it amazing how a hosta can look with a lot of sun exposure?
Peren.all, even though I am so surprised to see the size of my friend's S&S, I do see a lot of resemblance to it. I have cropped the photo to see the hosta a bit closer.
ConnieMay, I think #2 is looking very good also considering it was mid August when I took the photos. I rather like the different coloring and variegation in the leaves.
The third is I can't tell what it is. I also cropped the photo.
I would say there is no variegation in it. Just bleached out. Here's one even closer:
Gardencool, you think #3 could be lancifolia. I don't know if my friend's hosta has the right shape of leaves for lancifolia. I have lancifolia and I find the leaves are longer and narrower.
And I thought it would be a breeze to identify her hostas!
It will be really interesting to see what these look like in the spring! I'll ask her if she fertilizes or has ever fertilized!
newhostalady Z6 ON, Canada
5 years ago
gardencool