This is the hosta bed that got me started last spring. McTavish gave me some of her extra plants, helped and placed then for me .

You've hit one of the nails on the head!

That is, eventually, most Hostas will git big enuf to snuff out weeds.

Only one of many reasons to love Hostas!

hh

What do you mean "almost" hooked. Having a friend like McTavish (Myrle)and you are certainly a goner.

Nice pics!

-Babka

GORGEOUS!!!

Beautiful settings. You both did good.
Cher

Loved the use of the rocks and stones...very pretty settings.

I would love to see more pictures of the dry creek bed (I assume it's dry) the bridge and the plants under the shade structure. That looks really interesting. Give us some close shots.

Steve

Almosthooked was once, briefly, ALMOST correct.....:)

I can see signs in your very first bed that you added on right away. A little flower petal of an arc bumped out to the side of the bed around the tree. How fortunate you are to have such a knowledgeable and generous neighbor to help your addiction along. Just think.....as she runs out of room, you stand poised to generously offer places to put more gorgeous plants. How nice!!!!

You might discover that a free account with Flickr or Photobucket will serve you well. Then you can upload more than one photo at a time to GardenWeb. I had the free option until earlier this year when my garden photos jumped into the hundreds every month, and keeping them at Flickr required a paid (pro) account.

Babka, you are so right Almost Hooked does not describe it! Come clean now, how many have been added since this time last year?

Her second picture is the first new bed for probably 30 plants a year ago. She said that would be it - all she would need. My Niagara falls might have been her undoing. She was going to order one in a late season mail order sale from Hosta Geek. It was a good sale offering mature divisions for an inexpensive price. She got like 30 or 40 more. That caused a huge new bed to have to be built right away. We need to see pictures my friend!

She spent the winter in Arizona thinking she was safe from me. No - I sent her links to catalogues and lists of plants available at our local nursery. Her conditions are great with open semi sun/shade areas. Expanding with hostas just eliminates more of that pesky lawn that needs mowing. She's done a fabulous job. I for one would like to see some before and after's of all the gardens. Myrle

okay okay... maybe just maybe I have the wrong name....(Should it be changed?? ) but I really am trying to quit( who is lying now) lol. Still have to figure out how to send more then one picture at a time and my housework is waiting.I think maybe have around 100 and maybe 35 more but will have to count one day when the time thing is happening. I will send a few more but just thought it was too young a garden to get too excited about yet

Back to cleaning .. the sun is coming out and I have 10 hosta to find homes for.. will upload a few more later. This is the back side of the dry creek bridge and have a bit of an existing fish pond that this idea was built around. I will send some of our bigger pond with the major rocks my husband helped me acquire
Thanks for the encouragement, Faye

The hostas are beautiful...but I really like the rocks! Tell us about them...what are they and where did they come from?

Don,

You're a real rock-a-holic. I was going to ask the same thing. Doesn't look like granite to me.

This looks like granite.

Steve

Some of the blue or green colored rocks came from Arizona and packed into the bottom of our motorhome as the big root we found and could hardly lift and smuggled over the border to Canada. The rocks under the first bed Myrle got me started on were from a discard pile at a friends rock quarry and all the ones for the rock wall were ones we gathered from the mountains around the Salmon Arm area. The large ones are another story and it was all the old backhoe we have to haul them home from a couple neighbors that never wanted them from their acreages. We have one more my husband says he has to have on our back of our acreage but the deeper he dug with the backhoe the larger it got... then the hole filled with water so may be fall before I will have it. That starts a whole new flowerbed area

sun was actually shining and made shadows on the far pond.It was made with an old satalite dish

looking back toward my bridge

Veiw from the back tward our huse

Besides Hosta, rocks and roots I love to build things from wood too so can finally pay Myrle back for all the plants and suggestions when I lose the names of certain ones

{{!gwi}}

oops picture never went through... maybe I am sending too many now that I have started.lol Love the big rock Steve

My condo bird house no one wants to use but had fun building it anyway

I think Don has become your new best friend.

Steve

Our swallows love the cabin and have been using it for three or four years now. I guess they don't ike condo living( neither wuld I as it is hard to enjoy the hosta )

OMG, Faye, you are in the midst of an Eden!
How far are you from the gold nugget creeks and such that I hear about?

I love rocks. When I went somewhere I always brought home a rock. That was the high point of my first trip to Canada, coming back through customs and being asked if I had anything I was taking home that I did not bring with me. I said, "Just a couple of rocks." The agent wanted to see them, and I was really surprised. So I fished them out of my carry on bag, and he said, "Oh just ROCKS." I then asked him, "What other kind could they be?" and he said, "You know, things like diamonds and rubies and emeralds and gold." I guess my eyes got real big, because he just laughed. I was looking for the wrong stuff!!!

Wow, I LOVE your garden! The rocks are beautiful. I wish I had friends like you!!

Thanks you for all the comments but it seems to evolve and not much planning goes into my yard plans... sometimes it works and sometimes not. Not sure where the gold creeks are but a couple of our rocks have fools gold( and the odd time our blood and sweat when I am trying to place them)We are very fortunate to have a lake view in front yard and our back yard is a work in progress. If it was up to McTavish, I would have NO grass and all Hosta but then she has been collecting way longer then I have. They have access to unlimited water and we are on a well so I will have to watch how much more I purchase. We had to haul water for our plants a couple seasons so as not to deplete our house supply but not this rainy year anyway.

The only ones I know of who nest communally are the purple martins. They like apartment living. Members of the swallow family, they come at a certain day every year, and leave on a certain day every fall. My brother has up three nest boxes like a condo 6 on each side for different nests, and they send out scouts early to claim the bird houses. Then the flock arrives and my brother HAS to be ready. The year after Katrina, when he was still putting his place back together, they arrived and flitted around impatiently waiting on him to raise the pole with the nest box on it. HA! They were going into the apartments while he was securing the pole!

You might can have two different bird species nesting within 10 feet of one another, but never the same species. The wrens will throw the baby blue birds out of the nest box, and try to poach in the nest box. Most species need to have holes just the right size before they will move in. Also the right height from the bottom of the box.

Love your bird houses. Very imaginative. If you have Carolina wrens (I doubt they go that far west and north), they will nest in flower pots and door wreaths...not particular at all. We've raised two families of them two years running, in our Pig flower pot sitting on the deck railing. We call them the Pig Family. "When Pigs Fly" is a real event around here.