Hi Everyone,

I send you all a smile for 2019... wishing everyone many days of gardening happiness and satisfaction!

This will be a long one- the TLDR is at the bottom.

After 3 years of heartfelt gardening and all the purchases, learning, efforts, and time that goes with it (yes I enjoyed it all!) in Autumn 2017 my entire yard and gardens were buried in mud, muck, and silt or washed away with a flash flood.

I know that some eyes may roll because 3 yrs is a negligible amount of time for many gardeners, but regardless of years of gardening... garden destruction is upsetting.

The unusual 100 year event storm and flash flood was in November 2017. I tried to uncover and sift things out sometime after the flood and I had my fingers crossed for garden plants survival in Spring 2018 but not much returned in the spring... so much was lost!

All that I had left were the scattered ID tags and mapped spots in my notebooks for memories. I never took any photos because they were so young and not yet lush and leafy. I didn't deem it worthy.

So garden-wise, I spent 2018 sulking and having a pity party for myself. I felt foolish for all the time, effort, and money invested each day over the many months for it all just to get washed away in moments... ( and some of my house and contents suffered flood damage, too).

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I want to share a few gardening quotes that now resonate with me.

( I found these quotes on quotegardendotcom)

~ Anybody who wants to rule the world should try to rule a garden first. ~ Gardening Saying

~ A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself. ~ May Sarton

~ The principal value of a private garden is not understood. It is not to give the possessor vegetables and fruit (that can be better and cheaper done by the market-gardeners), but to teach him patience and philosophy, and the higher virtues,—hope deferred, and expectations blighted.... The garden thus becomes a moral agent, a test of character, as it was in the beginning. ~ Charles Dudley Warner, My Summer in a Garden, "What I Know about Gardening: First Week," 1870

~ There is no gardening without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder. ~ Alfred Austin

~ When one of my plants dies, I die a little inside too. ~ Terri Guillemets

~ When you have done your best for a flower, and it fails, you have some reason to be aggrieved. ~ Frank Swinnerton

~ Last night, there came a frost, which has done great damage to my garden.... It is sad that Nature will play such tricks on us poor mortals, inviting us with sunny smiles to confide in her, and then, when we are entirely within her power, striking us to the heart. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, The American Notebooks

~ It takes a while to grasp that not all failures are self-imposed, the result of ignorance, carelessness or inexperience. It takes a while to grasp that a garden isn't a testing ground for character and to stop asking, what did I do wrong? Maybe nothing. ~ Eleanor Perényi, Green Thoughts, 1981

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The disappointment was deep knowing that I read and studied and tried to do all the right things for the past 3 years for the hostas and the other perennials (bulbs, ferns, and other plants) in my "woodland garden" ... only to have it washed under the muck and silt. So the last quote above hit home with me.

Last year, I had planned to go to the AHS Convention in Philadephia and was excited to take photos (to share on the forum) and visit Longwood Gardens etc... but after the flood and seeing about half of my hostas never returned and 80% of the rest of the garden was buried and/or never returned in the Spring... I was just so upset that honestly I did not want to look at or read about Hostas.

I tried to return here to the Houzz GardenWeb Hosta forum in the Spring of 2018- just to live vicariously but I just had a pity party for myself reading the posts that day.

The remainder of 2018 I barely turned my attention to the yard and my gardens (except to mow and maintain the virginia creeper from getting overgrown).... nature was on its own!! I was pouting and scowling at my garden... the snails and slugs could have an all you-can-eat buffet!

Late in the summer of 2018, in between my sulking while mowing the yard, I noticed out of the corner of my eye large lush leaves. The hostas that DID survive the flood, truly did leap on year 3 (year 4 for some) and were fantastic and flush with full foliage (and barely eaten up by snails or slugs).... hmm. OK. A spark of hope was reignited for 2019.

So what did I do during 2018, as a plant and nature lover?

I turned to cacti, aloes, agaves and other succulents, anthuriums, calatheas ( and other indoor houseplants). I sought plants for indoors that mother nature can't mess with in my growing zone. BUT... since I am in the northern NH... I ended up needing to buy grow lights to keep these babies alive and not grow etiolated (too leggy) throughout the long winter with sufficient light.

Now that I have grow lights... perhaps I will try my hand at hosta seedlings.

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TLDR:

Happy to be back from my 2018 hosta and perennial sulking sabbatical. Just sharing my 2018 gardening let down and a few quotes... because it helps to know that I am not alone when it comes to garden and natural events "adventures". Thanks for letting me share this.

If you would, please share with me, your "to have loved and lost" hosta or garden story or stories.... and what would you do differently now -if there is anything that could be done to prevent loss.

I am interested and I hope that others will be, too. Thank you.