In Which She Natters On and On About Her Plants
We've been overrun out here in rural Wisconsin.
*cue the theme music from Hitchcock's The Birds*
We call them The 'Flies.
There are hoards of them. Hundreds and hundreds of little yellow butterflies, the size of your thumb,all around the front path, where the fall flowers are starting to bloom. They fly up in a storm of soft yellow when ever you try to walk to or from the front door. They seem to like the white asters best, not so much the purple ones, which I think are much prettier and would think would taste more 'fruity'. But then I would choose grape pop over lemon-lime any day.
They also love the sedum, which is the only reason I've not ripped them out of the garden. I'm not a sedum person. I know. Sacrilege.
Everyone is supposed to love sedum 'autumn joy'.
I am also not a hosta person. Well, I'm not a hosta person when they are used in the way that has been set down by law here in the Midwest, ringing the base of each large shade tree and marching along the border of your house's foundation. Bleh. Same with daylilies. Triple sacrilege. It's not that I hate them, I just hate the way they are used in garden after garden. Mixed in with other plants, I like them fine.
I think the garden police would be coming for me for having these views, except I've not changed the previous owner's plantings of the hostas and overused yellow stella d'oro daylilies marching around the base of our house. I'm thinking about it, though. My mum's coming out and she wields a mean spade. I just need to figure where to put them once they've been evicted. And it's going into winter, so maybe they're safe until next spring, when I'll probably be too busy with all the new plants I will have acquired in next spring's plant lust to mess with transplanting them.
But some year.
Some year, I will break the law and either move them or intersperse them with a riot of other plantings.
Better put aside some bail funds.
*cue the theme music from Hitchcock's The Birds*
We call them The 'Flies.
There are hoards of them. Hundreds and hundreds of little yellow butterflies, the size of your thumb,all around the front path, where the fall flowers are starting to bloom. They fly up in a storm of soft yellow when ever you try to walk to or from the front door. They seem to like the white asters best, not so much the purple ones, which I think are much prettier and would think would taste more 'fruity'. But then I would choose grape pop over lemon-lime any day.
They also love the sedum, which is the only reason I've not ripped them out of the garden. I'm not a sedum person. I know. Sacrilege.
Everyone is supposed to love sedum 'autumn joy'.
I am also not a hosta person. Well, I'm not a hosta person when they are used in the way that has been set down by law here in the Midwest, ringing the base of each large shade tree and marching along the border of your house's foundation. Bleh. Same with daylilies. Triple sacrilege. It's not that I hate them, I just hate the way they are used in garden after garden. Mixed in with other plants, I like them fine.
I think the garden police would be coming for me for having these views, except I've not changed the previous owner's plantings of the hostas and overused yellow stella d'oro daylilies marching around the base of our house. I'm thinking about it, though. My mum's coming out and she wields a mean spade. I just need to figure where to put them once they've been evicted. And it's going into winter, so maybe they're safe until next spring, when I'll probably be too busy with all the new plants I will have acquired in next spring's plant lust to mess with transplanting them.
But some year.
Some year, I will break the law and either move them or intersperse them with a riot of other plantings.
Better put aside some bail funds.
Labels: Garden Wars
posted by Diana at 9:11 AM
11 Comments:
For a Serious Gardener like you, I'll give you your hostas. :-)
For someone like me? They are a godsend.
I'm with you on daylilies. Never been a big fan of them.
So those things are called sedum? I hate them! We don't have cute little yellow butterflies, we have gi-normous bumblebees. I am talking 30-40...ick. I will bail you out ONLY if you come and re-do our yard first!
I love all those butterflies! This year we are seeing a bumper crop of Monarchs! So neat to see a come-back for them. Hostas are dull and boring. I like colourful flowers, especially in the fall when you have all the orange and yellow marigolds,mums,asters and zinnias. Wish I had the $$ and the growing season to rationalize completely re-planting in September! Ha! Funny joke, eh?
I not being of plant intellect will try to sound like I know what I am talking about here.
The sedum? Do they look like some sort of cabbage or weird type plant until now when the flowers come up and bloom? If so, I would like to rip out the remaining ones I have. I hate them. Other than the flowers now they are ugly in my yard. Plus they attract so many bees. And right now the bees don't need an excuse to sting you.
Beyond that, I think you have a beautiful yard. ;-)
I hate hostas. My mom planted 5,000 of them in the same way you mentioned and one of the few joys I had helping my sister when she bought the house was digging the little bastards out. It's not like they're really all that pretty or anything.
I would bail you out but I spent my last dollar on a Jimmy John's pickle (my sandwich was free because of the conspiracy, as you know). It was worth it.
I'm with you on the hostas, daylillies, and sedums.
I'd go straight for the compost pile. Rip 'em out and throw 'em in.
D, I agree with you about about daylilies, but I have come to really like hostas. My yard has so much shade that not much blooms, so I choose plants by the color and the texture of their leaves.
I just looked up daylilies in one of my plant books and it says to move them after they stop blooming, not in the spring. I will take that to mean that it will be OK for us to move them now. The real question is where to put them. The book also says that they attract rabbits and deer, so you don't want to put them anywhere near your garden or any trees the deer thugs might attack. Maybe we could put them on the far side of the "pony shed" where they won't be visible from the house, but they will have a little shelter to help them through this first winter.
Love, mum
I hated hostas until I moved to Portland, where people know how to use them to great effect. You are spot-on with your descripton of how people use them in the Midwest. And they only use one kind the boring-as-hell green and white striped ones. Hurl!
I also agree with you that stella d'oros are awful and way overused. I'm not a huge fan of sedum 'Autumn Joy' either and wouldn't you know that it is one of the few things that has self-seeded in my garden. But I have to like sedum a little bit cuz it's one of the few things that blooms this late in the year.
Another thing to add to your shit list--alternating red and yellow tulips lined up like soldiers--a Midwest favorite.
Cagey- Moi? Serious? Obviously I've misrepresented myself egregiously.
Kate- Oof. Yeah, the bees love them, too, but the butterflies seem to have staked their claim to them in our yard. Thank goodness. A large cloud of bees rising as you walk down the path to the front door would not be quite so charming.
Ruth- Our first year out here, we had a couple of days of massed monarchs in our yard. They roosted in the trees by the many thousands at night. So very amazing.
Lauren- This is a come-as-you-are blog. Never worry about being an intellect of botany or anything else. I'm no sedum expert, but I think they come in a wide range of 'styles'. The ones I've seen all have succulent foliage, some creeping, some upright. I'm not sure what the cabbage-y things are, but maybe?
Dana- Oh, dear. Did your mom ring things with them, too? The Midwest has some decidedly odd decorating sense. Good place to put your last dollar, on a pickle. We won't discuss the phallic imagery.
Karen- See, I'm such a schmoe. I can't kill them, I must relocate them.
Mum- No, no, no. You misunderstand me. I don't hate them, just the way they are used. I'll show you when you come. Your shade oasis of a yard is exactly how they should be used. I bought a pair of gardening gloves for you. The second spade, we already had.
Rozanne- That's exactly it! I think the Miswest's over consumption of jello salad has something to do with it. Spot on with the marching red and yellow tulips. For both reasons: Marching and red-and-yellow. Criminal. In fact, any marching of plants, trees, or what have you. Corn rows are the only exception.
the whole hosta tree ring thing is such an epidemic here too. I think it's because people don't want those nasty roots exposed, or just don't want to edge off and put a nice border there.
love your sedum. your's is a lot fuller than mine. and your daisies are beautiful!!
I wrote this really nice, long comment the other day and then it was gone. I was saddened. But I believe the brilliance of it had something to do with the fact that hostas are evil, that my mom ripped them out when we moved and they still came back somehow, and I had an odd question about maple trees growing on top of the roots of a fallen brother. Do you know if maple tree seedlings could survive if the strongest one was kept and the others were trimmed if they were growing over a 10 year old root system of a maple tree that didn't make it through a late autumn storm? Does that make any sense at all? Probably not. I need to take pictures of the maple "bush" growing in my mother's backyard.
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