Okay, y’all ready for another what-we’ve-been-doing-outside post? This particular rundown, as you may have guessed from my title (why yes I can pun in Spanish), is about some hosta business that we pulled off, thanks to a bunch of extra hostas growing randomly in our backyard (this backyard garden bed is a hot mess but we’ll get to it someday!).
Since they weren’t doing much for us back there, we dug ’em up – about five in total – and decided to put them to better use. For starters, they certainly could help our bedraggled mailbox (which became quite weedy this spring).
The mums that were there turned into dead sticks in the winter and, well, don’t mind that big rock. We found it elsewhere in the front yard and somehow it ended up there temporarily. Perhaps to distract from the weediness? Sure. That’s why. And look at poor Squirrel-y (see him tipped over behind that lone cowlick of a daffodil that’s completely done flowering?). This is the “first impression” we’re putting out to the neighbors. Ugh.
So we pulled all of the weeds out of the driveway (which was a surprisingly major improvement) and the iron squirrel temporarily took residence in the liriope.
Now, the advice from Katherine The Landscape Gal had been to either make the planting bed around the mailbox larger or just let it fill in with grass/ground cover. Good advice. We didn’t really have the energy to dig up a bigger plant bed at this point though, and we liked how the petunias looked there last year. But next year we’d definitely love to expand this bed so it’s larger and more gracefully curved for a little more curb appeal magic.
For the meantime, we got three pots of petunias at Home Depot and, paired with some of the hostas dug up from the backyard, we got to planting.
Here’s our little arrangement. It looks a bit spaced out right now, but having learned how well flowers grow in that area we’re pretty hopeful that it’ll fill in nicely within a month or two.
Oh yeah, and a little mulch never hurt. Here’s where it’s achingly obvious that Katherine was totally right- this little garden would look so much better if it was bigger. Someday…
At least it looks better than this ridiculousness….
Since we still had a handful of hostas with no place to call home, we decided to use them in this still-blank spot of our front planting bed that we last detailed here.
Ta-dah!
No, wait. Here’s the real ta-dah (again, thanks to the power of mulch). Although, this gives you a good idea of how mulch fades after a few weeks in the sun (and pollen). Haha. So hopefully that dorky mulch-tan-line won’t be there for long.
People always ask what kind of mulch we use, and we just grab the darkest brown wood mulch Home Depot sells (it’s usually on a special like three bags for $7 or something). But once we establish these beds (hopefully by next spring) we’d love to get a mulch delivery since we hear they can be a lot less than buying by the bag as you go.
Oh and those hostas will get nice and giant so they won’t look as dinky (they seem to keep growing well into the summer, and can get 20+ inches wide). The area is looking better now that we’ve extended our new plantings a bit more, but what will really help is something that’s still in the works. Perhaps this rendering below will give you a hint…
Maybe that was more than just a hint. It’s actually already starting to come in, but I haven’t had a chance to mow and take proper pictures yet. That’ll be a topic for another day! Has anyone else used transplanted bushes or flowers to spruce up their landscape lately? Are you a fan of the hosta? They’re one of our favorite shade plants (haven’t killed one yet!). And they always seem to be popping up randomly around our yard (the same was true for our first house) so it gives us a little thrill that we don’t have to pay $5- 7 for them at the store since they seem to just sprout up at whim.
And those dudes are pretty darn hard to kill. True story: we once found one in a pot within a large sealed tupperware bin in our basement growing without any light or water about two months after we put it there while we moved! We thought the pot had nothing in it but dirt when we popped it into the bin along with some other pots, and then in the spring it started to sprout right inside the tupperware. We laughed for about five minutes when we found it. It was a hosta miracle, I tell ya.
Psst- We really should update this master list of outside tasks (it feels like we’re inching along out there, but we actually have a bunch we can cross off now).
Kelly says
Day lillies might also be a good option for your gardens. They are almost indestructible! Love the hostas.
YoungHouseLove says
Fun idea! We actually have some here we could transplant!
xo,
s
heather says
haha we have so many day lillies and they keep multiplying! They started in a mound on our properties five years ago and despite the fact we’ve replanted them a ton (and even thrown some in the burn pile) we have more than we ever started with. Those suckers are HARDY no matter what light they are in. I swear.
Mariah says
I have some in sun that are doing great as well. They are the ones that keep getting so big I split and move.
YoungHouseLove says
Seems like it might be a regional/type thing since so many folks have different sun experiences with them! So interesting!
xo,
s
April says
Hostas are great. We have 4-5 in our side bed that is shaded and it gets completely covered with leaves each winter and we are always late getting the leaves out. But sure enogh the hostas have already sprouted once we get them out in early spring. The good thing about hostas is you can easily divide them up into smaller groupings once they get really big. They can get pretty large.
Lauren@FilingJointly says
LOVE hostas. They are notoriously hard to kill and come in so many different shapes and colors.
The following probably sounds ridiculous but my dad is a gardener and he would be sorely disappointed with me if I didn’t mention it.
The one thing I would watch out for with the mulch is making sure it isn’t very deep. If it is 2-3″ or more voles may make a bed of it and hostas are one of their very favorite things to eat. Some gardeners actually recommend leaving a ‘donut’ of space around the hosta to keep voles away.
Slugs and snails also love to make a home of mulch and also enjoy a dinner of Hosta, but they won’t kill the plant. Voles unfortunately will. And there are many species of vole that are native to the Virginias.
YoungHouseLove says
Ooh thanks for the tips Lauren!
xo,
s
Lauren@FilingJointly says
Also, voles are adorable and I really want one for a pet. But my husband has a ridiculous “No Rodents In The House” policy.
He is SO unreasonable sometimes.
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, I say sneak one into the bed and show him how cuddly they are.
xo,
s
Kim says
Love the title! We just planted Hostas, too, in our very shady backyard. When we got free mulch from the town a few years back (they were tree trimming), we had quite the surprise pop up all over our yard-Stinkhorn fungi. Don’t know if you have them there, but they feed on decaying wood, a.k.a mulch chips. They smell like a dead animal, no joke! Not what you want when visitors approach your house. I’ve never had it happen with store-bought mulch, so I wonder if they treat it or something? Our science loving kids were fascinated, though.
YoungHouseLove says
Oh my gosh- so crazy!
xo,
s
Corie says
I was 8 months pregnant when we moved into this house 5 years ago, and I had a 21 month old monkey of a child at the time. The whole perimeter of our yard was full of various bushes/shrubs/flowering plants… there were tons of them. I’m already crazy, but being pg made me extra-crazy and I made my husband remove every single plant b/c I was SO afraid of ticks. Now, I wish we had those plants back. :( I really appreciate how long it takes for things to grow/fill in and how much different/stronger/more vibrant/etc. a more mature plant is. And also how expensive this crap is!
All that to say that I really love how you’re moving things around your yard, adding to it and making what’s there work in different ways. It’s so good on so many levels.
And WORD on the mulch. It makes everything look 10x better. It’s like paint for the yard! ;)
YoungHouseLove says
Oh man, that’s so funny about the prego tick fears! I hope everything grows in nice and fast for ya!
xo,
s
Amanda says
When you’re ready to kick up your mulch purchasing a notch – check with your local school district. Our local high school does a fundraiser every March where they charge $40 for 10 of the BIG bags (3 cu ft, maybe bigger?), including delivery. (We can order more, if needed – but 10 seems to do our yard pretty nicely) It feels good to get a decent price, AND help the school, you know?
YoungHouseLove says
So smart! Thanks for the tip!
xo,
s
Erin says
In Fairfax we can get free mulch (including my fav- leaf mulch – at the dump in Lorton. We just pull the pick up under the giant shoot, and fill er up! Maybe they have something similar in Richmond??
YoungHouseLove says
That’s awesome! We’ll have to look into that!
xo,
s
Elizabeth K. says
A lot of commenters are saying that hostas don’t do well in full sun, but we have a ton of hostas in full sun at our house and they do as well as the partial sun/shade ones (the previous owners apparentlY LOVED hostas because they’re everywhere)- actually the full-suns get the largest of them all. I live in Northern NY though, so I wonder if it’s in the hotter climates that hostas don’t do well in full sun.
YoungHouseLove says
Yes, I think it’s just a regional thing, because many of ours are in full sun and do well! Someone else said it depended on the color/variagated type, which is interesting too!
xo,
s
betterOutdoorLivingatHome says
Hosta is a great plant for the shade…and it is a really attractive filler plant. Your mailbox area turned out nice! The dark mulch makes all the colors of the annuals ‘pop’!
Stephanie at rowHOME says
Hostas are winners in my book! They are sturdy and lush. Your mailbox area looks much better. We did some “garden” work last weekend, and now it’s time to get outside and relax! Have a good weekend.
Georgia says
I’m not a huge fan of hostas. We have them in our rental house and our garden (front doorstep) goes from being really bare…at which point I like to plant some things)…to being smothered in hostas.. They take over evrything by the middle of summer, so you can’t even see the other plants. I am a very novice gardener, but I separated some of them last year and planted those in another part of the garden, and they are growing great guns, but while it made the original plants smaller last year, they are just as big this year. Great for filling in a shady spot with no other plants, but I don’t think I’d ever plant them in a mixed garden of my own. I also suspect that they are hard to get rid of.
On another note, I leave my mums in the ground all sticky ( just cut them back a bit) and even though they look dead , every year they come back.
Shellie says
When we bought our house it had been empty for three months with no water in the dead heat of summer. There was a giant planter barrel-bucket thing full of dirt in the front yard that we just kind of ignored- without water and through a cold winter for another 6 months. Low and behold when spring rolled around that thing bloomed the hardiest load of day lillies I have ever seen! We had to pull and separate the bulbs because they were too crowded.
Even then I may have taken a bunch of bulbs and threw them on the (hard rocky) ground near the trash can. A couple weeks later those darn things sprouted right where they sat!
Not done yet- there was a couple more that got left in a wheel barrow which filled with some standing water and had nno drainage. You guessed it, up popped more lillies!
In conclusion? I am a terrible gardener but those lillies are sure strong!
Heidi S. says
For the person asking about transplanting (and dividing) hosta…
Hosta are really resilient. I dig mine out (typically around the same line as the leaves) with a spade straight down going all the way around the plant (some of mine are huge). Typically a hosta will have roots about 6-9″ or so down. After I go all the way around I use my spade to lift it out (sometimes with the big hosta it takes a spade on one side and a shovel on the other). Then I remove the loose soil (if it is muddy I sometimes hose the roots off to see what I have). Then I take a large saw with large teeth and cut it into pieces (you want to leave an area large enough to have a few leaves and some roots). For a big hosta I can often divide it into 5 or so plants. Then I dig a hole slightly larger than the root ball. If the ground is dry water the hole first. Then place the root ball in (so the top of the roots are about 1/2″ above the ground level). Then I fill in around the sides and walk all the way around the plant to make sure the soil is compacted around it and water. When transplanting you want to water every other day for the first 2 weeks to make sure the plant takes. After that I recommend watering at least once a week if it doesn’t rain for the first season. Good luck fellow planters!
Here is what is blooming this week:
http://www.statelykitsch.com/category/garden/blooming-this-week/
YoungHouseLove says
Great tips!
xo,
s
Melissa says
No idea if you have a recycling center in your town but we have one here and they do mulch. It’s crazy cheap and really good mulch, its by the lb I often get a full truck load for under $20!
YoungHouseLove says
Love that tip!
xo,
s
Jill Lee says
My neighbor gave me some Hostas back in November, just left them on my driveway. I never got a chance to plant them, so they sat there all through the CT winter, covered by firewood and snow! Come our warm March, they started sprouting right there on my driveway! I moved them to a new flower bed I planted and they are growing like weeds now! I love using them to fill in empty spots in my flower beds!
ashlie says
Completely unrelated question, but is the Spring Pinterest Challenge coming up soon? I’m itching to start a new project for it!
YoungHouseLove says
We’d love to figure that out! Katie B is crazy busy but I’ve been meaning to ask her about our new one!
xo,
s
Crystal @ 29 Rue House says
Working outside is so much fun and replanting something you already have is such a money saver. We’ve got a couple bushes in our front landscaping I’d like to move when we get to it. They aren’t really my favorite but I’m sure I wouldn’t mind them in the backyard somewhere.
And in line with your plant that survived suffocation, some of our broccoli were decapitated so I dug them up and planted something else. I left the decaptiated broccoli just lying there and it sprouted again (now I need to plant it back in!)
YoungHouseLove says
Haha- so funny about the broccoli!
xo,
s
Jaime Barks says
Have you ever looked into building a flower bed with using cardboard? You can google it to learn more about it but basically you just lay a layer or two of cardboard right over the grassy area you want to turn into a bed. You then put some compost and mulch on top of it and let it hang out. By the spring the cardboard will have broken down and your soil will be great! It is way easier than digging. I’ve had great luck with this method. You can see a few yard pictures here, I established all my bed this way. My yard is all quirky and weird. It is still a massive work in progress. http://www.barksblog.com/search/label/garden
YoungHouseLove says
Love that tip Jaime!
xo,
s
Leigh Anne says
My name is Leigh Anne, and I have killed a hosta. It’s currently yellow, wilted, and sad-looking in our…wait for it – mailbox garden! I’m embarrassed.
YoungHouseLove says
Oh Leigh Anne, give it some time! Here’s hoping it comes back! Haha.
xo,
s
Karen F says
So weird with the timing of this post, but I’ve been thinking of planting some hostas after seeing them my sisters yard last weekend. They’re so pretty (I’m a sucker for variegated leaves) and I don’t exactly have a green thumb, so they might actually make it!
Have a great weekend, guys!
niamh says
Holy Moly, hostas are tough to move! Our new home has tons of them in the backyard that I thought could help spruce up the front a little (we have a mulchy hill in the front of the house). Even though I caught them early in their spring sprouting, their root systems are intense! Luckily, they had thrived where I put them out front (8 total)!
Brynn says
Not related, and I am sure you already know it, but you were featured on LearnVest for your key map! http://www.learnvest.com/2012/05/10-under-10-ways-to-save-your-favorite-memories/?gallery=493&pid=#pid-6039_aint-0
YoungHouseLove says
No way! That’s cool!
xo,
s
Wendy says
I love hostas, and actually just planted one (along with a bunch of free plants from my parents’ yard) last weekend. It made a huge difference, but I hope they can survive. They’re in an area that our dog Lulu uses as her “potty zone” and there’s a lot of roots from a neighboring tree. At least the plants were free! :-)
Emiles says
oh i’m super sad faced you didn’t do a nice big flowering bush there on the end. :( I’m presently over my own hostas, they’re basic all-green, so if I got some variation, I wouldn’t be such a hater. someone commented early on, but I’ll double-down on it, they love them some shade, so I’d have concerns about them burning up out front. Speaking of flowering bushes and out front around the mailbox…we actually have a miniature lilac planted right at the base of our mailbox (I actually think there’s three), so that might be a good idea! It’s super easy to take care of and looks beautiful (obviously dies down in winter though).
As for my own yardwork, I dug up a bunch of tulips last weekend, they were in bunny-prone areas and under the aforementioned lilac bush so they didn’t get to “sing” with all their glory. I’ll be planting them in the fall where they can get more lovin’ and not get eaten by rabbits!
LauraElle says
If you really want to save money on a mulch delivery, try this: rent a U-Haul pick up truck & go get the mulch yourself. Just hose out the bed before you return the truck [obviously]. The truck will have a thick, sturdy black liner to protect against scratches. The mulch supply will have a bull dozer and drop a load of mulch in the truck bed.
We do this every spring. This year the total was $170 for the truck rental and mulch. Last year, we got three yards of gravel and three yards of mulch and took a load of debris [from a DIY project] to the landfill. Total cost, including truck rental: $260.
When my husband suggested this, I scoffed. Me? Drive a pick up truck and shovel my own mulch?! Never! Then I found out that having the mulch delivered would cost $500 at least. I decided sweat is free and had no problem DIY-ing the mulch.
YoungHouseLove says
Really smart!
xo,
s
Meaghan @ lovelee honeybee says
I think it looks great. Fresh plants and flowers do wonders (inside and out!)
Although I don’t have a lawn (condo dweller here), my parents have a large property and love gardening. Hostas are one of their go-to plants for ground cover and every year my dad splits the big ones to plant in other areas of the yard. Gotta love that!
Ali says
Funny you wrote this because we just tore out everything in front of our huse and are planning to go to Lowe’s or HD this weekend to get some hostas and other plants! I love hostas. I’m a Yankee and don’t recall seeing these up north, only since coming to Virginia. Fun!
Shelly says
Are you sick of everyone telling you hostas don’t do well in full sun? haha ;-)
I had a huge hosta in my yard that I divided up last May. I got 6 nice size plants out of it to line the walkway. But they never grew from the transplant size, even after watering, feeding and so on. Good news is this year they look amazing! They are huge and wonderful. I looked up what the deal was with them not growing and when they should be transplanted. Apparently you should divide them in the fall and not spring or summer. It weakens the plant and they stay busy trying to stay alive instead of growing. So don’t get discouraged if they don’t fill in this year as they may not. Also, mine get some sun and they are fine, I do think some sun is fine if you have good soil, I live in Louisville and the soil is like black gold! :-) Hope they do well for you! Looks nice…I love any garden porn post! haha
YoungHouseLove says
Oh I like your soil theory! We have awesome soil (so thankful!) so maybe that’s why ours are happy in the sun?
xo,
s
Krys72599 says
5 hostas = 10 hostas = 20 hostas…
They’ll fill in just fine anywhere and everywhere.
And my full sun ones grew just fine, but as someone mentioned, their color was not as deep and dark a green…
Katherine says
The wonderful thing about hosta is that they volume in size and can be split. Then you have ‘more’ – oh, spell that ‘free’.
I also take the hydrangea plants that I buy in spring for inside the house and put them in the garden when the weather warms. Even if they look like they need to be trashed – put them in the garden and watch them come to life again.
In the fall take the trailing ivy from planters and put them in the garden, they will come back in spring……..well, at least it all has in my garden.
YoungHouseLove says
Love that Katherine!
xo,
s
Kyley says
I don’t know about where you live, but in my township in pennsylvania we can get mulch at the township building for free. I guess they mulch all the bags of leaves/sticks/etc they pick up from residents throughout the year (scheduled yard pick-up days) – and in the spring you can show up and shovel it into your car/trailer/truck for free if you live in the township.
You can also pay $5 and have them load it for you with their loader on certain days.
We usually grab a bunch of family members and my dad’s tag along trailer and make a day out of getting mulch for everyone. And it looks just like the stuff you’d buy in the store.
YoungHouseLove says
Such an awesome deal!
xo,
s
jackie says
Have you considered seeding more grass on that corner? That small area looks pretty but seems a little random.
YoungHouseLove says
Yup, that was the other alternative! Grass or ground cover (or a larger bed).
xo,
s
Katherine Victoria says
I LOVE hostas for that reason. When we first bought our house the front lawn went right up to the foundation. I found a GIANT hosta out back and cut him up into 4 plants and moved him to the front. This was in late fall. A few weeks later, there was nothing left but a few brown sticks. I was practically in tears. Lo and behold all 4 hostas popped up and have tripled in size! Love a plant you literally can’t kill.
YoungHouseLove says
Wahoo! So glad they popped back up!
xo,
s
Linda says
I have huge hostas in my backyard. They’ve been there for over 20 years!! And they are in full sun. My “hostages” (as we call them!) seem to love it. It might also help that I have a drip-line irrigation system in the planting beds. I live in the same area as you do–lovely Bon Air! Even my hydrangeas do well in full sun. They get a little droopy in the late afternoon, but perk up overnight. They are exquisite right now. I think old hydrangeas like old Bon Air!!!
YoungHouseLove says
So funny! Maybe it’s just Bon Air! A magical place where hosts don’t mind the sun. Haha. We need to get that on a t-shirt or something. Our claim to vegetation fame!
xo,
s
lena says
I’ve been searching your site for the post about getting the little painted wooden cutouts done of your first house, and I can’t find it anywhere on the site…. A friend of mine is moving and I think this would be a great gift. Thanks so much!
YoungHouseLove says
That was a gift John got for his parents by The Cat’s Meow. I think if you search that it should come up. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Suzanne says
Love transplanting Hostas. The take off with no help and instantly make a space look better.
Mine are getting all eaten up in the front though. Ants or some other tiny bug..some look like lace! But I haven’t researched what to spray them with yet.
Any ideas?
YoungHouseLove says
Anyone have ant ideas?
xo,
s
Alyssa says
I just commented below, but they do make a deer spray that works wonderfully up here in WI, I’m not sure of the name, but it may work for other bugs too?? Good luck:)
heather says
Slugs love hostas, and they can make it look “lace” like by chewing through the leaves. You can test the theory by making a slug trap. Put warm water, beer and yeast in a tin can and bury it so the top is at soil level and leave it there. Aside from this the real issue may be that your soil is too acidic (if the damage is from slugs). Slugs cannot stand acidic soil so amending to a ph of 7 or slightly more alkaline will help.
Also, by watering in the morning the soil will dry during the day and slugs, which bed in moist soil, will likely find cooler soil for the hotter parts of the day.
If you have aphids (my arch nemesis in our garden) they can also cause extensive skeletonized leaf damage. I boil a small amount of cayanne, garlic and onion, put it through cheese cloth and then in a spritzer with a few drops of dish soap. Spray it on your leaf’s and the aphids can’t stand it.
If you have ant problems and peonies nearby, you want to be careful. They need ants to open, and getting rid of them will hurt your peonies blooming. (which is why we also don’t plant them near our home – they are in a bed away from the house, barn or garage)
YoungHouseLove says
Great tips Heather!
xo,
s
Jen@The Decor Scene says
Love what you did by the mailbox. Very pretty. Not sure if you like to use Miracle Grow, it works well on the Hosta’s as well. We had little baby ones that grew a lot quicker because of the Miracle Grow. Just my two cents. ;)
We love us some Hosta’s as well. We have a whole long thin bed that is only Hosta’s along a fence line. We love it. They actually cover the whole bed now once they come in each each. AND the best part….they were free. Our neighbor wanted to divide her giant Hosta’s. The first year they looked funny, but 4 years later, they are huge. We love them. We have some in our front beds also.
This weekend we will be transplanting some evergreens that need to be in a bigger bed. Plus that new bed has been empty for 5 years, so it is time to finally put something of interest in that bed. Can’t wait for things to fill in nicely next year. ;)
YoungHouseLove says
Good luck transplanting those evergreens! That’ll look so good!
xo,
s
Nora Rose says
Hostas are currently my favorite plant. We had a random row of them across our backyard and my little brother not so gently ripped them out for us. I sprinkled them across an area I cleared out and they have exploded. It’s nice for mulching because you can’t even see the dirt anymore.
http://seventhandw.wordpress.com/2012/04/28/finally-some-flowers/
There is a picture here of when I first moved them and they have completely taken that area over. You can also divide them in the spring to get more and avoid paying $5-7 ever again!
YoungHouseLove says
So awesome!
xo,
s
Martha says
Front looking better all the time! What do you think about a pretty railing beside that walk? Wrought iron???
YoungHouseLove says
It’s only a few steps down, and we like the open feeling for now, but you never know where we’ll end up!
xo,
s
Lani says
So I used to pull up my dead stick mums every winter…but last year I got lazy and in the spring they sprouted up…in the middle of the dead sticks, with bright green leaves again. This year I cut down the sticks to the ground, but didn’t pull up the roots, and lo and behold….they are back full force!! One is even blooming already!! If you buy those mums from Home Depot or wherever for just annual plants, try cutting them down in the winter and see if they grow back in the spring. I had one grow back so big this spring that I was able to divide it an transplant it elsewhere! And I am NO gardener…this was just a happy accident! All free gardening, right?
YoungHouseLove says
That’s awesome!
xo,
s
Meredith @ La Buena Vida says
I am a new convert to mulching flower beds, and I’m a total believer already. I think mulch ang hanging baskets are two of the easiest things to do to increase curb appeal!
I’m with you on the mulch delivery–I really want to get a load delivered to try in our veggie garden this year.
Alyssa says
I actually have a two part comment…other than the fact that your yard is really starting to look great!
1. I read the comment about deer liking hostas and yes that’s very true, but wanted to mention (if you didn’t know) there is a spray you can get to put on the plants and it seems to work very well here in WI:)
2. About the mulch delivery, just be sure you are getting a decent type of mulch….we had some delivered once and it was a very mixed type of “leftover” stuff from the local nursery so it had pine needles, moldy bark, etc. we didn’t mind at the time because we didn’t need an amazing quality for the project we had, but we didn’t know how crapy it was until we had the gigantic pile in our yard. We actually ended up putting the leftovers on Craigslist for free to the first person who wanted to come scoop it up:) even though it didn’t cost us much and worked for what we needed at the time, it was a lesson learned, which I thought I’d pass along:)
Anyway, good luck with the rest of the years work!!
YoungHouseLove says
Great tips Alyssa!
xo,
s
KMW says
I love hostas. We recently sold our first house and before the new buyer took possession I dug up three of the many hostas and trasplanted them into our new backyard. I can’t wait for them to really take off and fill in their new home!
seansmom says
Hello..my name is Nancy and I’m a hosta addict!.. ha ha!
I’ve been “collecting” them for years and have about 12-15 different varieties and sizes(miniature, regular, and giant). The best thing about my “collection” is that most of them were FREE…given to my by other people!
The best thing about hostas are that, although they are shade loving plants, they will grow anywhere and while deer do eat some of them, there are certain varieties(especially the giant ones) that they won’t touch!
Can’t say enough good things about hostas!!!!
Lindaroo says
Your front beds are looking so pretty.
Regarding the new grass filling in along the walkway, I think it would look great if you widened the walkway and made the steps from the porch deeper and wider, also. Give the entry to your house a grander, more welcoming path to your front door. IMHO, of course!
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yes we’d love that someday! It’s a big job but would make such a difference!
xo,
s
Dina says
We live in the city and have a small 15’x20′ concrete backyard, with a chainlink fence. Last summer, we hired contractors to dig up the concrete (since I was too pregnant to swing a sledgehammer myself, haha!), build a real fence, border flower beds, and lay down sod (bluegrass). All good… until our 60-lb dog’s toxic urine killed the bluegrass. Oops. So we recently went to a nursery specializing in urban gardens and they suggested that we replace the grass with ground cover, since it’s more resilient AND much lower maintenance. It was one of those palm-to-my-forehead moments… why didn’t we think of that in the first place?! So, that’s on our agenda for this weekend, as well as planting hydrangeas around the perimeter. The nursery suggested that we use creeping thyme. Have you thought about trying ground cover instead of grass to the right of the walkway in the last two photos? I know you two are sick to death of liriope by now, but the creeping thyme is really pretty and purple, and smells nice too!
YoungHouseLove says
So smart about groundcover! We have plans for that under our giant magnolia where grass won’t grow!
xo,
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Sara says
Those hostas will fill in nicely! Like the mailbox area too.
I split a monster hosta in two a while ago, and they grew in decently the following spring but by mid summer they seem to be starving for something. Im going to relocate one to the back of the house, see if its happier there.
Re Mulch: check out the recycling programs in your city, they seem to all differ, but worth while. My cities deal is $15 dollars gets you 6 cubic feet of mulch and compost per season. Transport w/ a couple garbage cans or recycle bin, etc. Return throughout the season as needed.
I planted some shrubs the other night and they are looking puny right now, hoping they fill in nicely (and yeah, the area needs some mulch).
http://sara-another100yearoldhousereno.blogspot.com/2012/05/backyard-update.html
(My apologies if this is a double post; the other one seemed to have disappeared)
YoungHouseLove says
That’s a really cool program! And the plants are looking good!
xo,
s
Christina P (NS) says
Bahaahahaa – I haven’t even read the post yet but this was my husband’s joke as we dug the hosta’s out of our front garden a few weeks ago so it made me laugh out loud!!
Rach says
Looks great house is coming around awesome! I love when you can use stuff from other parts of your yard and move them! We did this too! The only thing that bugs me about my hostas is the slugs get them july/aug:( boo and then they get holes in them. I am going to have to be better this year about trying to find natural ways to get rid of the creepy slugs:) Not sure if you guys get them in the South? I up in MI.
YoungHouseLove says
I haven’t noticed any! Maybe they’re hiding?
xo,
s