I've got green on the mind

Gus, you actually nurture hosta and trash echinacea and rudbeckia!? That's it - our engagement is off. Hosta is like Hamburger Helper for gardens - got a bald spot, plug in a hosta.

Sozobe - if you need free plants join a garden club. People will be a happy to give you extas. Just be careful as to what you accept, many will be invasive.

Not a big fan of Gurnsey or Michigan Bulb, poor quality IMHO.
White Flower Farm should be ashamed to charge what they do, but they are good for inspiration.
Do you folks know places like Raintree Nursery and Mellingers, and High Country Gardens?-good quality,fair prices.
For seeds I like Pinetree, Fedco and Territorial Seeds.

LittleK - this move just brings you closer to one day having your own garden.

Thank you for validating my dislike of hostas! I just don't, no good reason.

Garden club, good idea. (Eva, I've picked neighbors' brains for gardening ideas, no cuttings have been forthcoming yet though.)

I'm pretty much at baseline for maintaining what I have (which is a lot!) and am now looking towards shifting things around/ making things more my taste.

I usually get inspired a couple of expensive places -- White Flower Farm and a super-cool local nursery -- and then, once I know what I want, buy at another local nursery with much more reasonable prices. (And a great selection/ tons of stuff, but without direction I just wander and say oooh I want that and that and that and that and...)

What is wrong with a nice display of hostas? You too are so damn girlie. You have to have all that frilly crap that blooms for a half an hour and then dies. Hostas hang around for the duration of the season.

Quite right, Gus.


There's nothing wrong with a good bit of bushy undergrowth, that's what I say!

women make the worst landscape architects cause they get attached to only one kind of plant without considering what the others have to offer.
Hostas need to be in a mass with some shade loving flowers in clumps nearby, like evening primrose or a celosia.

The thing about coneflowers is they need a good cinder block mulch to keep em in one spot. We have em all over . Butterfly bushes too. Ya start with one butterfly bush and soon your out there with a tanker of Roundup , killing thousands

The women try. They really do. They will plant some tulips and then clasp their hands together in a joyful fashion as the flower blooms. Half an hour later the damn thing is dead and they go in the house to start ordering some more damn tulips.

Its a genetic thing like who makes the best barbeque sauce(hint, it sure as hell aint Martha Stewart)

Hey. If any of the womenfolk show up we had better scatter.

They'll just want to borrow some money to buy some tulips.

hey, that so ain't true. many women are great landscape architects. I love hostas, for the record. You can play with different varieties in a shaded area - which I had a ton of. Then their differences really come out nicely, different colours, different leaf borders... i had them from lightest to darkest and it was really beautiful.

Well, dangnab it! I guess there are some real women left in this world.

hey, by 'real' you don't mean their size, do you?
i'm preventively offended.

Not at all. I merely refer to your fine taste regarding plants.

I'll wager you're also friendly with sedum....

sedum, aka, rozchodník.
yep, my mom has it in her front lawn. i love the colour.

Sedum can also be used as roofing material.

"A pitch and tar flat roof can be turned into a beautiful and enduring paradise for birds and bees."

"This style of roof can only be described as manly, due to the fact that it is practical and strong, yet good looking. So basically, it is just like the average Englishman."

" The best feature, however, is that there is not a tulip in sight........"

http://www.permaculture.co.uk/mag/Articles/Grow_Your_Own.html

...manly....practical....strong....good-looking

and

the average Englishman?


That's an oxymoron if I ever seen one.

Excuse me, I do not have the LA after my name, but I am well respected in the field of garden design. Instead of hostas I use wild ginger, numerous ferns, cimcifuga, coral bells, ginseng, golden seal, trout lily, shooting star, lady slipper, foam flower, partridge berry, mayapple etc. Hosta attracts deer, around here we call it "deer crack".

If you are having trouble with things like butterfly bush you must live a zone 6 or warmer, they are invasive there. In zone 5 they can't make it through the winters. With all the great butterfly plants available there is no reason to plant butterfly bush. And get rid of the Roundup, it's bad for the frogs and salamanders.

The English really do know how to use sedum the best. I love the roofs covered with hens & chicks (house leeks to the Brits).

(Thanks for riling up Green Witch and getting a bunch of great shade plant suggestions out of her! ;-))

I'm not very fond of tulips, actually. They also seem to be popular with deer. My favorite plants are probably those with great, fragrant flowers and also attractive, long-lasting leaves; like lily-of-the-valley or peonies.

Sozobe, I have to log off for the most of the day, but I will be happy to send you plant lists for various conditions. And yes, deer love the tulips.

Good grief, farmerman. How many female landscape architects' work do you know well? I and many other female landarchs I know spend countless hours considering the bountiful possibilities of a wide range of plants. Perhaps you are thinking only of some commercial projects which often have a routinized look whether done by a landarch or not - some of that because cities have lists of plants they will allow. And why separate male and female landarchs? Harrumph!

I felt that this thread needed an infusion of setanta, an hes busy right now, so it was left up to me to be the bearer of honesty.
So GW , you think that merely knowing plants names will redeem you , fie , hah, hah I say, ... whats a trout lily and what would you suggest for a tall shade background the abuts a garden wall but is shaded by a weeping cherry. We have lamium and Im getting tired of the lamium behind the hostas. I want something tall and something that visibly divides.

osso-you know me better than that. Im an elf ,a troll under the bridge, who the hell would ever take me seriously?