Despite the removal of eight trees and arborvitae in the last two years, my childhood home’s yard is filled with shade. Thus, we have lots of hosta, which my mom had picked up quite a number of varieties of, and is now quite attached to. But, with my parents retiring and moving fully to the farm, decades of cultivation is about to be lost. With the wolves circling, I finally got around to moving many of these varieties to the farm this weekend.
Luckily, hosta not only reseed, but grow in ever expanding rhizomes which are easily divided. Hence the great hosta evacuation: removal of hosta from the main gardens while attempting to maintain its look, then transport and replanting at the farm.
The biggest issue is that, while the current gardens are mostly what I call ‘generic greens’ -two or so varieties of hosta with plain green leaves- the ‘take two of each’ ark philosophy meant that the farm garden is mostly the more distinct and interesting cultivars. That’s actually hard to work with for landscaping purposes, as all are fighting for attention.
Also, it turns out I didn’t realize just how much yard space was filled with hosta at home. The evacuees at the farm far overfilled the target hosta bed. There were also some azalea, monarda, and ferns.
Syllepsis
'Come let us drag one of our dark ships to the bright salt sea'