It is not that I like hostas that much but they grow in the shade and this is a fairly shaded garden, that's why I have so many hostas. I have always regretted the lack of full sunlight on this garden; in fact, I've spent a fair amount of time regretting the lack of sunlight on this garden but I've also come to accept it and even think it is perfect the way it is.
Hostas are easy to grow, they don't need much care (or any care), or any sunlight.
A perennial is like a daughter, you have her for life; an annual is like a son, you have him until he finds a wife. Not the greatest analogy but you get the idea, assuming you know the old adage, “A daughter is a daughter all of your life; a son is a son until he takes a wife.” Of course, some sons keep their old parents in mind, my uncles phoned their mother every weekend, some phoned everyday, and my Uncle Alex visited his mother every Sunday and took her for a drive. Had it been my uncle's father instead of his mother, maybe he wouldn't have visited as often. Mothers are the center of the family, fathers often peripheral. But fathers can have other relationships, a second or third wife, or a girlfriend, or friends or acquaintances, or a dog or cat or a goldfish.
And in gardening we have perennial plants, they return every year. That is part of the beauty of perennials, you aren't planting a new garden every year, the old garden comes back to life in the spring. And when your perennials get big enough you might want to divide them and move some of them to other places in your garden. I have a really nice row of hostas in the back of the garden, divided and planted last fall, and they helped to pull the garden together.
This hosta, in the photo, is in our front garden, and it had to be moved because I am planning to have some work done to the front of the house; this is how easy it is to dig up and divide hostas. It takes all of a minute or two to dig up the plant, it has a large root ball, and then divide it into three parts, that's what I did. And then I planted the three "new" hostas in different parts of the garden behind the house. After the work on the front of the house is done I have four other hostas I plan to divide and plant in an area that needs some upgrading... but that might have to wait until late October or even early November, still time enough to do this work, and other gardening, before winter comes in December.
 |
| Planning to divide these hostas next |
People talk about their backyard decks as being like an additional room off the house, that it's an extension of the inside of your home. The more comfortable the deck the more inviting it is and the more it will be used. Of course, the deck is there at the cost of your garden, your backyard is covered over with wood, stairs, garden furniture, a barbecue, an umbrella, chairs, and more, maybe a few garden gnomes and a small pond with fish in it and a fountain! If you have children or want to socialize outside then you'll want a deck.
When I walk around this neighbourhood I see a lot of cars, driveways, roads, parking lots, trucks, front lawns and some gardens, a backyard area behind the houses and between adjacent streets, some birds and some people. Then, I return to my garden and it seems an oasis of peace and quiet, flowers and plants; if you plant a perennial garden you've invited birds and insects and maybe some nocturnal urban wildlife to visit or live in your garden. Mother Nature will appreciate your effort!
But a Canadian cottage garden, like a deck, is also an extension of your home; you can see your garden when you look out of the window and the more pleasant you've made your garden the more time you'll want to spend there. Your garden is also like a room just as a patio and deck are like a room, but they are otherwise different. Our backyard used to have an apple tree (it's still there), some raspberry canes that had been neglected, weeds, and grass; it was not particularly welcoming but it was good enough. It was good enough but you didn't want to spend much time there. Something could be said in favour of a weed garden, uncut grass, a neglected space, a space that has gone to seed (literally). It must have been about six years ago that I began to transform our backyard into a garden and since then it has become what I wanted, a cottage garden, an oasis of sorts, with perennial flowers, a place where many birds visit the bird bath or just fly over, a place with lots of flowers and lots of insects.
Each of us can make something of beauty, in some way we can restore some peace to life, affirm life, restore some goodness to life. Everyday we are surrounded by change as though change has some kind of merit in itself; I believe that not changing has some merit. Government has taken over many (most?) aspects of life and, frankly, our society is worse today than it was ten years ago when the current government was elected. Are you better off today than you were in 2012? Obviously not if you live in Canada; high inflation, more homeless people than ever before, we're afraid to get sick because our medical system is falling apart, the national debt has never been as large as it is now, a prime minister who has no moral compass, and Quebec moving relentlessly to separation from Canada. We used to discuss things and we respected that other people had differing opinions; however, discussion is a thing of the past as people are cancelled or yelled at or otherwise shut up. Intolerance and outrage prevail!
My only complaint about my garden is that it's too shady; I planted hostas where it is most shady. I've learned that many perennial flowers don't need either direct sunlight or sunlight all day; gardeners have to adapt to what they actually have.
A large lawn is like a paved parking lot; it is better than a parking lot but not a lot better. I can see this everyday in my garden; a garden attracts a variety of insects, more insects every summer, and more birds every summer, a lawn doesn't attract anything. If this is important to you, or interests you, then plant more flowers or vegetables, plant a perennial garden; this way you'll be making a home for insects, birds, and urban wildlife that will never know you have made their habitat a better one for them, they will make use of your garden as they would anywhere else in the natural world. Also, you'll be making your environment a lot nicer for yourself and you'll also be doing a service to the insects, birds, and urban wildlife. One of the good things about nature is that it doesn't take long for it to return; the only ghosts in ghost towns are human ones, nature is quick to move in and make deserted towns their own. In the old days we all sang Joni Mitchell's song, "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot", now we know that the parking lot didn't necessarily last long and paradise returned.
Photographs of my garden taken on July 7, 2022.
The next morning I took these photos:
We've had a mild October this year, it was +20 C yesterday and most of the previous two weeks; however, it is raining today (on Saturday) and the coming days will be in the +10 C range. This means it's been great weather to get out and work in the garden, in my case moving or transplanting hostas. One of the advantages of perennial plants is that they are perennial, you buy them once and not only do you have them year after year, but they multiply, and then you can divide them and have more of the same plants; plus, you buy them only once so you aren't paying for them a second or third summer. Perennials are the gift that keeps on giving... Frugality is something the government of Canada needs to learn as we are now half way to a trillion dollar debt. Meanwhile, annuals look great for one summer and then, in October, they end up in the compost or the garbage; I've seen piles of geraniums thrown out, still in bloom, they could easily have been overwintered indoors and planted the following spring.
About five years ago I planted four hostas in the front of the house, as a border to the walk, as well as other hostas planted in the backyard; I decided to move two of these plants to the back yard garden and that's what I did last week. In fact, I also moved a few other hostas into this same long row at the very rear of the garden, it has the effect of pulling the whole garden together. This backyard, my Canadian cottage garden, is not very large and it doesn't get a lot of sunlight except where the house abuts the backyard and even what sunlight I get isn't guaranteed, it depends on the time of day; in other words, nowhere does this garden get twelve straight hours of summer sunlight on a single day as do the gardens of some of my neighbours. I don't have a great love for hostas; I like hostas, but... so, planting these hostas was a matter of convenience and even necessity, it is all that will grow where I planted them; also, they are perennials and there are many varieties of hostas, they will grow and flourish in the shade and I like them well enough.
 |
| You can see where two hostas have been removed, they were the same size as the hostas on either side of the remaining hostas; by the way, hostas are easy to dig up, even four or five years after first planting them the root ball was more or less intact. It is also easy to divide the root ball prior to transplanting them. |
 |
| Here we see the row of hostas only half planted; this is very poor soil and it's beside some cedars and below an apple tree, so not the greatest place to grow anything. |
 |
| Here is the completed row of hostas, they'll look better next year or the year after next. It was only after planting them that I realized how they completed the garden; the hostas gave a sense of enclosure to the garden as a whole, a sense of completion. |
 |
| I planted these hydrangeas and the hostas in the foreground last summer when I also dug this small island in the backyard. It isn't a lot of work to dig up small sections of grass and, one thing I've noted, is that an island also creates green space surrounding it, it creates paths. I enlarged this area this summer and, recently, I moved the hostas further away from the hydrangeas. By the way, the hydrangeas were moved from the front lawn area where they were too plentiful. I don't throw out any plants or bushes. |
