Melancholy Decisions

The sunshine today was a welcome surprise!  I managed to get walks in for the doggies and weeded two beds this morning before noon.  We have no shortage of dandelions this year.  I cannot recall a year when we have had more, either.  The areas I sprayed last week haven't wilted at all, so maybe the herbicide I have is too old. But then the hopeful side of me thinks maybe it's because it's been too cold and once the weather warms up the weeds will simply keel over.  (I can dream, can't I?)

This afternoon I decided to abandon my GADS tendencies and worked on transplanting the hostas in the above picture to 'Somewhere Else'----------- a magical land that seems to exist only in my head, because by the time I have a wheelbarrow full of hostas, Somewhere Else seems to have vanished into thin air, lol.  Where do I go with all these plants?

( Oh, by the way, this is where we sawed the two spruce trees down on Monday.) There are around sixty hostas in this bed, even though it doesn't look like that many.   The spruce trees did provide shade; but now the hostas would be in the full sun for better than 3/4 of the day.  First we thought about planting an Ironwood or some other shade tree in the bed, which would work, but will take a long time to grow enough to shade a hosta garden.   That's when Carl and I decided that in keeping with our present Reduce, Reuse, Recycle mindset, we would just turn the area back into lawn. 

The only problem with this scenario is the way the shop sticks out like a sore thumb from the road.  Before the trees were removed, they were more of a focal point, albeit two ugly ones; but now the stark, white building is there instead.

Before

On the way down....

After

With only the willow tree to shade the bed from the south, these hostas would be crispy critters in no time, so I don't think moving them and putting lawn back in is a bad idea.  I'm just wondering if we should plant a deciduous tree in the area instead, or a conifer?  We also discussed how we could turn the area into the temporary home for the greenhouse next year, thereby freeing up driveway space, but this would limit where any trees could be planted.  And another plan under consideration is the possibility of putting in a circle drive, which would be practical and useful but also a bit of a challenge to blend in with the surroundings. 

There are three stone walls to move too, and up against the shop are some hardy cacti and hen & chick succulents in need of a new home.  I think I will plant some of them in Dave's bed in front of the house and spread the rest out among the new berms. 

We concentrated on moving the named hosta cultivars after Carl came home from work.  Two people working together can get so much more accomplished, especially when digging the big ones out.  I almost gave into the temptation of adding on to one of the other hosta beds before I realized that wasn't solving the problem, just adding to it.  That's when I got the idea to plant the hostas on the north side of the west berm.  We only got 23 moved tonight and I'm not sure how they will fare under those light conditions, either. Trial and error, the name of the game.

  We'll come up with something eventually (hopefully, an improvement, lol).

Tomorrow's another day,

Karen