How is your garden looking today?

where bambi goes
nothing grows.

From my garden today.

That's beautiful, c.i.
Can someone tell me this:
I've noticed that in the area where the hostas are pushing up, there are many roots coming up as well. Are these roots from the hosta plant or roots from other plants, like weeds or maybe english ivy growing nearby, being pushed to the surface?

Lovely fujihana, c.i. How old is it?

P.S. : Kudos for the nicely composed photo. A backdrop of the side of a house, lawn furniture, etc, wouldn't have done the flower justice.

How old? Gee, I'm not sure any more, but if I had to guess it's about ten to fifteen years old.

fujihana = wysteria?

Yes, wysteria, westeria, and wisteria.

it's gorgeous - your garden looks so lush!

Beautiful flowers C.I., its nice to see something in bloom this time of year...my garden is frozen.

littlek, Actually, my garden is rather bare compared to the past when I would have planted flowers in both front and back of our home. With my more frequent travels, and lack of care at home by my wife or son, they would all be dead by the time I return, so I've not planted any flowers this year. I just took the picture that included the old growth plants. I still need to prune my japanese maple, but I've become lazy.

Well - it's luch compared to the freeze-pocked earth around here.

that's lovely ci.

RJB, we have a lot of deer too. I've had pretty good luck alternating various repellants including chips of Irish Spring soap. My latest find is 'Liquid Fence'. I've been using it for three years now and I actually get tulips. The first year I had people driving over just to see tulips in the village. I think it's a formulation that includes coyote urine. We also get the occasional coyote, but I can't seem to get them to pee where I need it :wink:

Does anyone know the answer to this?
thanks

They're all from the hosta plant, eoe. Usually, especially if they are well-established, a hosta will have about a dozen shoots pushing through the surface.

Shoots are not roots, are they? There are the usual shoots of two out of six hostas beginning to sprout but then there are roots as well, even with the plants that have not sprouted above ground yet, and I don't want to start digging around in there, to figure out where these roots are coming from, and possibly hurt the hostas. But on the other hand, if these roots are from something else, especially the english ivy, I need to get rid of them before they start choking the hostas.
Help.

how old are the plants, eoe? None of my books mention roots growing at the surface but I'm wondering if they need to be divided?

I checked a number of my perennial books and there is one mention of a species of hostas that spread by rhyzomes (H. decorata)



Do you know what species you have?

Thanks for the info, JB. I really don't remember what species they are, tho. I have six plants, 3 different species, and they're about five years old now. I've never divided them but one did come up puny last year. That was a first. They're planted close to english ivy and I do cut that back, trying to control it but who knows what's going on underground?

This is what's left of my garden. It's being developed. Note that we are still taking advantage of the open space.

eoe: Little white roots have been popping up around my hostas for years(at the spot marked X in the photo). I simply thought they were feeder roots from the maple tree. Could be root competition for the humus on the ground surface. Is this what you have ?

re. hostas : we actually use hostas to keep the grass from invading the flowerbeds. we plant hostas around the flowerbeds and they work better at keeping other growth down than border bricks or anything else. at least here in ontario hostas seem to crowd out any other plant, yet they do not spread excessively. we started with no more than five or six hostas about forty years ago and must have given away at least a couple of hundreds to friends and neighbours over the years. one of the problems we have is that slugs really like to build their nests in the hostas, but it doesn't bother us much, and they are really winter-hardy, down to minus 30-35 C. hbg

(we visited brookgreen gardens near myrtle beach, s.c., a week ago and the tulips and daffodils were in full bloom. we took one of the guided tours and the guide told us that they had planted FORTY-FIVE THOUSAND tulip bulbs initially. when they had planted those bulbs they received a call from their supplier offering them SIXTY-FIVE THOUSAND additional bulbs for free - they took them. it was just a riot of colour.) hbg