Nice plants! I bought some from Jim earlier this year and was equally as pleased.

Last order? Mmmhmmm....sure....lol

Glad the "golf clubs" arrived in good shape! And thanks for the pics... I like to know what they look like on the other end! (I ran out of newspaper for a bit and used some packing paper that was more like tissue - held the moisture fine but I see shreds of it still hanging on to that PP root ball...

I get such a kick out of knowing that plants are going directly from my gardens into great gardens all around the country. We've been gardening here for 35 years now... and have had some hostas from the very beginning. As older folks, we are so aware that life circumstances can change rapidly and at some point we won't be able to maintain the roughly 40 gardens with probably 3000 hostas and 500 other perennials - so it is just a kick to know that when we quit, the hostas will continue on in New Jersey and North Carolina and Alabama and Michigan and Wisconsin and Iowa and...

(This next isn't advertising - we rarely sell anything directly to visitors... we just do a lot of garden tours and hosta talks and love doing it... so...)

Now - I expect to see more of you visiting the gardens next year... the end of May and first weeks of June are by far the best. Maybe if you travel to the national convention in Iowa you'll want to make a Minnesota field trip?!

We only have one big visit on the calendar - fundraising gala garden tour of some sort at the end ofJune... but we just love showing people around and "talking smart" about hostas pretty much any day of the week. We had a GW visitor this morning and it was supposed to be a quick pick-up... I'll bet we spent an hour and a half or two just gabbing!

'3,000 hostas'.....My head just exploded. Popped like a fat, fat seed pod.

Don B.

Hey, idiothe, do you have a website? If so could you post an address?

Very nice looking plants. I can't imagine how you take care of 40 gardens and 3000 hostas, but am so impressed. My garden isn't a fraction of that and I still can't keep up.

Jim, I had a great time at your garden yesterday. It is really a hosta wonderland. People, you can't see the whole thing at once. You have to wander down the paths (taking notes on plants you want) and getting new ideas for projects. Everyone should see this garden sometime. There is always so much to talk about and discuss. This was my fourth trip to Jim and Sheila's place. I have never gotten out of there in less than two hours because there is so much to take in and absorb. Yesterday they were showing me how to make this fabulous garden art out of old glassware. It sparkled in the sunlight and looked beautiful. I am so lucky to live close enough to visit often. Thanks again Jim

Always great to see you, Vicky!

and Don... I don't want that to sound like bragging... 3000 hostas is probably a little deceiving.

When we were working, we learned that there would never be enough time to take care of everything in the garden - and when we had large vegetable gardens (raising kids and foster kids, we needed the food!) we learned it was hard to motivate ourselves when we knew it might take three days to weed the garden. Just too intimidating.

So we divided the ornamental gardens into small sizes divided by pathways. Most of the beds have probably 20 - 50 hostas. Mentally, I know I can't weed the whole place... ever! But even on a hot day I can say... "OK... one or two hours and I'll have S 11 ('The coffee deck garden') cleaned up and then I can take a nap!"

It also makes it easier to keep track of plants. I know where all my favorites are, but if you ask me where you might see one of the more obscure hostas, I'll look at my alpha list, see that it is in E5, and walk you over to my gas grill to lean over the railing and look down on the plant.

So we've got somewhere around 750 cultivars labeled... probably 800 if we count the sports and seedlings we're watching... and with duplicates that makes probably 1000 or more labels in the 40 or so garden areas. Then there is "The Farm" - an area under three dwarf apple trees where there are lots of duplicates in rows... and the Back Forty which has probably another 1000 seedlings, sports, and some rows of named cultivars.

And all of a sudden it is 2500 or 3000 - and who is going to count them? Many of these areas are survival-of-the-fittest areas... I might weed them once in the spring and then it is up to them to compete with the snow-on-the-mountain (spawn of the devil) and creeping charlie and jewelweed and who-knows-what-that-tall-succulent-weed-is-that-pops-up-in-august-with-the-bright-orange-yellow-flowers...

This is not a rich person's garden... we do it mostly ourselves and it is never neat and tidy everywhere at the same time. The best it has ever looked was on the Thursday of the national convention in 2010 - and when most of the visitors came on Friday the garden was blitzed by severe hail. We ascribe to the belief that the gods must strike down the arrogant - so our less-than-perfect maintenance might give them some protection!

So... sure hope folks will come visit!